Game Over dibs-11

by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles

  ‘Think nothing of it,’ Slider said graciously. ‘We’ll put Hollis on it when we get back. Borthwick’s record, I mean, not . . .’

  ‘Gotcha.’

  The rest of the basement was windowless, stone-floored, the walls clad to shoulder height with those glazed brown tiles beloved of Edwardians, the bare bricks painted above with pale green distemper, lit by naked forty-watt bulbs hanging from flexes that were probably the originals. Footsteps echoed down there, and there were distant mysterious groans, thumps and gurgles of pipes, and a monotonous dripping as if an unseen tap somewhere had a faulty washer.

  ‘I could feel right at home here,’ Hart said chirpily. ‘My school was just like this.’

  Part of the space was taken up with the pit of the lift-shaft and the bottom of the stairs. There was an open area around them, a door in the adjacent wall into the flat (battered metal with a massive keyhole) and then various rooms around the perimeter, linked by corridors. Presumably at one time the caretaker had had a lot more to do for the residents than in modern days. One room was evidently the coal-store, for there was a chute leading up to a circular bronze hatch in the pavement above, and a lingering, ghostly smell of coal, though it was swept clean. Next door was an ancient boiler squatting on a concrete dais, though all its pipes had been removed.

  ‘Must’ve used to run the central heating. They’ve all got individual gas boilers in the flats now,’ Hart said.

  In another room was an array of grey metal cupboards housing the fuses and access to the circuits for the whole building. One cupboard, Slider noticed, had a sticker on the front, a white plastic circle with a telephone logo in the centre and the words RING 4 SECURITY around the perimeter.

  ‘That, presumably, is the security door,’ said Slider.

  He tried the door but it was locked. The sticker looked newly applied and did not quite cover an elderly paper sticker underneath, which was triangular rather than round, so its faded, frayed corners just showed.

  ‘This is what I wanted to show you, guv,’ Hart said, leading him to another room, the one nearest the door to Borthwick’s flat.

  There was a massive metal sink in the corner with a single cold tap above it – the source of the dripping sound – and the marks on the walls of various machines and pipes long removed. It looked as though it had once been a laundry, either self-service or for the caretaker or his wife to perform service washes. Or perhaps people had kept servants in the old days. It was an interesting speculation to Slider, who always wanted to know how people had lived in times past, but not nearly as interesting as the object which occupied the centre of the room: a large Triumph motorbike, propped on its foot stand, an oil-stain underneath it, and a tool-kit spread out on a filthy square of canvas beside it.

  ‘Borthwick’s?’ Slider asked.

  ‘Yeah. I thought you’d like it,’ said Hart with pleasure.

  ‘How does he get it out? Not through his flat?’

  ‘Nah. There’s a door into the yard under the stairs over there. For taking the rubbish out.’

  ‘Locked?’

  ‘One of them push-bar jobs. It looks in good nick. But it doesn’t matter, does it?’ She went to the reason for the question. ‘The stairs down to here are open, anyone could come down, and we know the security door wasn’t working.’ She thought a bit more. ‘But why d’you think the murderer might come down here?’

  ‘Just covering the bases,’ Slider said. ‘You always need to know where the access points are. So, Borthwick’s got a bike, has he?’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Hart. ‘I wonder if he’s got leathers, an’ all.’

  Emily and Joanna had gone to a second cup of tea and a pack of three custard creams. They were still talking (Emily was intelligent about music and interesting about journalism, so the conversation generated itself spontaneously) when April behind the counter, telephone in hand, called across, ‘Mr Slider’s back, love.’

  ‘Do you mind?’ Joanna said, rising. ‘I want to talk to him.’

  ‘So do I,’ said Emily.

  They got down to the CID room to find new events already in train. Slider hadn’t even got as far as his room. He put his arm round Joanna and kissed her cheek but his attention was on Norma Swilley, at her desk and on the phone.

  Atherton, coming up beside Emily, explained. ‘It’s not about your dad, it’s another case.’ And to Joanna, ‘Someone’s using the mobile that Bates called on this morning.’

  ‘Really? Then if you can get a trace on it, you might catch him?’

  Slider glanced at her. ‘In theory. But in practice—’ He broke off as Swilley looked up.

  ‘Boss,’ she said, with a shadow of puzzlement in her eyes, ‘Mick Hutton says he hasn’t had an official request yet to monitor that number. Not from any of the SOs. No-one has.’

  That was strange. Wouldn’t they be eager to follow up the only lead they had on a wanted, dangerous, jailbreak master criminal? But there was no time to wonder about it.

  ‘It’s their loss and our opportunity. Let’s get after him. Mackay, McLaren – who’s next door from uniform?’

  ‘Renker and Gallon.’

  ‘Good.’ They were both big, hefty lads. ‘Get ’em. Norma, stay on the line with Hutton and liaise with us through Atherton.’

  ‘You’re going?’ Atherton asked, seeing Joanna’s eyes widen. Slider gave him a silencing look. Of course he was going!

  Fathom spoke up excitedly. ‘Guv, let me come.’

  Atherton, still holding Slider’s eyes, said, ‘He might not be alone.’

  Slider nodded. ‘Come on, then,’ he said to Fathom, heading for the door through which the other two had already disappeared. ‘But do exactly as you’re told.’

  ‘Yes, guv,’ Fathom said, grinning in triumph as he followed.

  Into the small silence that followed, Norma said, ‘He’s still on the line.’

  ‘What is all this?’ Emily asked.

  Atherton had gone to his phone to establish the link with Slider, so Joanna answered.

  ‘Come over here, out of the way, and I’ll tell you about it,’ she said.

  She found her hands were shaking a little. She so badly wanted Bates caught; but Slider had gone himself, and a cornered fox was unpredictable.

  The time seemed to drag by horribly, but in fact they were not away very long. When Slider came back into the room Joanna’s heart clenched with relief; only afterwards did she realise with sickening disappointment that his rapid return meant it had been a false alarm.

  ‘You didn’t get him?’

  ‘Oh, we got him all right,’ he said grimly. ‘“Him” being a fourteen-year-old boy.’ He held up the evidence bag with the mobile in it. ‘Jason Clifton. Found it lying on the front garden wall of a house, partly hidden by the privet hedge. He’d just come out of school, couldn’t believe his luck. Pocketed it, then as soon as he’d put a bit of distance between himself and the site, he rang up a mate to boast about it, and was still having a long, luxurious chat when we turned up.’

  ‘You believe him?’ Joanna asked.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Slider said wearily. ‘I think it was Bates’s idea of a joke. I think he bought the mobile for the single purpose of making fools of us. The only possible help it might be is that he might have hung around to see the fun, so we’re bringing the boy in for questioning as soon as we’ve got hold of his appropriate adult. But I doubt if he can tell us anything. We know what Bates looks like. What we don’t know is where to find him.’

  ‘I suppose,’ Joanna said hesitantly, ‘he wouldn’t be at home? Is that a silly question?’

  ‘The house was sealed up when he was arrested, and they’ve been watching it ever since he was sprung from the security van,’ Atherton answered.

  ‘They being?’

  ‘SOCA – the Serious Organised Crime Agency.’

  ‘And is that the same SOCA that didn’t get the mobile phone monitored?’ Joanna asked.

  ‘Good point,’ Atherton said. He looked
at Slider. ‘Should we maybe check that it is being done?’

  ‘If you can think of a way to do it discreetly,’ Slider said.

  ‘I’m on it, guv,’ Hart said. ‘Phil Warzynski at Notting Hill’s an old mate of mine.’

  In the car on the way home, Joanna asked for more detail on the Bates business, but there wasn’t much more Slider could tell her.

  ‘I’m glad the others are going to help you try and find him,’ she said.

  ‘So am I. Though they’re putting themselves on the line – could be disciplinary action if they’re found out.’

  ‘Don’t sound so surprised. They love you, stupid.’

  ‘You look tired.’

  ‘It’s been a long day. Did you know Jim’s taking Emily Stonax home?’

  ‘I heard.’

  ‘You don’t mind?’

  ‘It won’t hurt. She’s not a suspect. She wasn’t even in the country.’

  ‘I was in the country,’ she reminded him.

  ‘Well, we got away with it,’ he said, putting a hand on her knee. ‘Do you mind?’

  ‘About us or about Jim?’

  ‘He and Sue are really all over?’

  ‘They weren’t really suited. It’s a shame, but . . .’ She shrugged. ‘I think he’s just being kind – about Emily, I mean. I hope so, anyway. I wouldn’t like to think he’d take advantage of someone in her position.’

  ‘He wouldn’t. He’s a nice lad.’

  ‘Lad!’ She snorted. ‘You’re getting soft in your old age, you know,’ she added as he backed in to the last parking space in Turnham Green, which was fortuitously only fifty yards up the road from home.

  Slider got out, and was just closing the car door when there was a tremendous roar. His instinct reacted before his mind had even worked out what the sound was, and he sprang like a springbok into the space between his car and the one in front as the motorbike howled past so close that the wind of it buffeted him. There was a crack, crash and tinkle as the wing-mirror of the car in front ripped off, hit the road and the glass shattered.

  Joanna, on the pavement on her side of the car, gripped the edge of the roof with whitened fingers. He met her shocked eyes. ‘What the hell was that?’ she said through stiff lips.

  ‘Did you see it? Anything?’ he asked. Adrenaline was dashing about in his body like a headless chicken.

  ‘Nuh,’ she managed to bleat. Then she shook her head and said, in a more normal voice, ‘It was too quick. I wasn’t really looking. Just a blur.’

  He went round the car and took her in his arms. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘That’s my line,’ she said, and he knew she was. After a minute he released her, and she looked up into his face and said, ‘Was that him. Bates?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘It could have been.’

  ‘He knows where we live? Or has he been following us?’

  He took her by the elbows. ‘It might have been him, or it might have been nothing to do with him. But the point is this: if he wanted to kill me or hurt me he could have done so. If that was him, what he wants to do is frighten me, and by extension, you.’

  ‘Tell him he’s succeeded,’ Joanna said with grim humour.

  They walked up the road and went indoors, Slider leading, eyes everywhere, senses on the stretch. But his instincts told him that there was no-one watching him, and there seemed nothing amiss in the house. They changed, washed, prepared a meal, and sat down with it. They didn’t talk until the food was gone.

  Then Joanna said, ‘It’s not just us we have to think of.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘There’s the baby.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘I have to ask you again: do you think we’re in danger?’

  He thought for an intense moment, but he could only say again, ‘I don’t know.’ He studied her face. ‘Are you afraid?’

  She thought. ‘A bit. Not a lot, but a bit. Mostly I’m angry. No-one has the right to do this to us. It’s blackmail and I hate blackmail.’

  ‘Nice, normal, healthy reactions.’ He smiled, a trifle wearily. ‘I’m wondering if it might be better if you went away. Just for a little while.’

  ‘Until you catch him? But you don’t know how long that might be.’

  ‘I don’t want you to be here alone,’ he said. ‘Just in case.’

  ‘Well, I’ve got Leeds tomorrow and Huddersfield the day after. My last two dates. I could stay up there overnight, if it helps.’

  ‘You weren’t going to drive back and then back again?’ he discovered.

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘In your condition?’

  ‘I’d sooner my condition slept in its own bed, thank you. But if it would stop you worrying . . .’

  ‘I think it would, a bit.’ Forty-eight hours wasn’t much time to catch him, but it was better than nothing. After that, they would have to talk again.

  In bed, later, they held each other closely, and each pretended for the other’s sake to be asleep. After an hour or so they made love, carefully, because of the baby, and then they really did fall asleep.

  In Atherton’s bijou artisan cottage, the teenage Siameses did their usual wall-of-death act, racing round the house without ever touching the ground, so fast they were just a blur. Sredni Vashtar and Tiglath Pileser – known as Vash and Tig for ease – were the legacy of his last attempt to get it together with Sue. She had persuaded him into getting them, but then when they finally broke up said she couldn’t have them because with her job she was away from home too much. There was truth in that; also, as she further pointed out, that he had had a cat before and she never had. So the kits stayed and mutated into mobile shredders. Once he had learned to put every piece of paper away and wedge the books into the bookcase, they worked out how to open the loo door and thereafter all his loo rolls became elegant white lace.

  But they were a great ice-breaker and got Emily over any awkwardness there might have been in finding herself alone with Atherton in his house. Chatting about the cats, he took her bags up to the spare room and dumped them, showed her where the bathroom was, and then mixed them both a gin and tonic large enough to wash in. He left her playing with the cats while he went to the kitchen to start supper, and called over his shoulder that she should put some music on. He thought sorting through his CDs and then figuring out how to work the player would make her feel at home, and her choice of music might tell him something about her. He was eager to learn everything about her he could, but he didn’t know where to start. In the end it didn’t take her long either to select or to make the machine work. He was still chopping onion when she appeared in the kitchen doorway, glass in hand, with the opening chords of the Symphonie Fantastique behind her.

  He glanced up. His heart looped the loop again. ‘Nice and noisy,’ he commented.

  ‘I started with the Bs,’ she admitted. ‘And it couldn’t be Brahms, Beethoven or Bach.’

  ‘No, I can see that,’ he said. ‘Too emotional.’

  Her face cleared. ‘You understand. You know a lot about – well, stuff, don’t you?’

  ‘I did stuff at A Level.’

  She watched him chop for a moment. ‘Can I help?’

  ‘Thanks, but there’s not really room in here for two.’

  ‘You like to cook?’

  ‘I like to eat, so there’s no alternative. Yes, I like to cook. I hope you like pasta. It’s just the quickest thing I’ve got ingredients for.’

  ‘I love pasta,’ she said. The cats had oozed past her into the kitchen and were winding themselves sinuously round his ankles, making suggestive remarks. ‘If you’ve got something to twiddle I’ll keep them out of your way. If you’re sure I can’t help.’

  ‘You can lay the table when the time comes. Thanks. There’s a catnip mouse on a string somewhere – probably under the sofa. Most things end up there.’

  ‘I see what you mean,’ she said a moment later, and brought out a sock and the inside bit of a toilet roll as well as th
e mouse. She was a good twiddler and the cats were soon absorbed in one of their monotonously ferocious games. ‘Your boss seems nice,’ she called out.

  ‘He is,’ Atherton replied. ‘He’s the best.’

  ‘That’s what Joanna said. She’s nice too.’

  ‘He’s the only man I can think of who deserves her.’

  ‘We had a good long talk in the canteen. She’s very sympathetic.’ She whipped the mouse across the room again and it disappeared under a writhe of cream fur. ‘She told me about this Bates person. Is he really dangerous?’

  ‘It’s hard to say. Usually these threats are only meant to frighten, but Bates was a pretty hard case.’ The chopping sounds stopped and he appeared in the doorway. ‘I don’t want you to think that anything will come in the way of your father’s investigation.’

  ‘I know,’ she said, looking up from her position, crouched on the floor. ‘But it occurred to me that I could help you. With two things going on you must be stretched, and I’m sure you never have enough staff. You read about it in the papers all the time, about the police being short-staffed. Obviously,’ she forestalled him, ‘I couldn’t do police things, I know that. But I could do research for you.’ He still looked at her doubtfully, and she urged, ‘I’m really good at that. It’s my job – a large part of it, anyway.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sure you are. I mean – yes, obviously you must be. You couldn’t use the police computer system, of course—’

  ‘I know that, but there must be lots of information in the public domain that might be useful to you. And then there’s all Dad’s paperwork to sort through. That’ll take a lot of time, if you don’t have enough people.’

  ‘I’ll have to ask Bill,’ Atherton said, ‘but, if you really want to get involved, I’m sure there’s something you could do.’ He smelled his onions catching and hurried back to the stove.

  The pasta didn’t take long, and soon they were sitting down at the table with their bowls and a bottle of wine. He had a block of fresh Parmesan and leaned over to grate some for her.

  ‘This is really nice of you,’ she said. ‘To go to all this trouble.’