‘I told you, I like to eat.’
‘I didn’t mean only the food, but everything. It would have been hideous going to an hotel.’
‘That’s what I thought. Wine?’
‘Yes, please. I don’t want any risk of not sleeping tonight.’ She watched him pour, idly caressing the gold locket, something he guessed she did all the time and wasn’t aware of.
‘Nice locket,’ he said, sitting down. ‘Unusual. Is it old?’
‘Not to me – Dad sent it to me for my birthday last week. But it is antique, I think.’
‘It looks heavy.’
‘It is. Dad said it’s very valuable and warned me not to lose it, so I wear it all the time. It has his picture in it.’ Her eyes filled suddenly and dangerously with tears. ‘I can’t get used to the idea—’
‘I know,’ he said, getting up again, meaning to go round the table to her, but she shook her head, putting her hand up in a defensive gesture to stop him. He paused, awkwardly half up and half down, and she got out another tissue from her sleeve and blew her nose.
‘I’m all right,’ she said. ‘Please, sit down.’ He sat, watching her anxiously, and she said, ‘Will you tell me about you? I don’t want to talk about me because it will make me think about things, and I don’t want to think just now.’
‘Well, if you like,’ he said, feeling oddly shy about it. He had talked about himself often enough to women, but it was usually a seduction ploy – and they usually knew it as well as he did, so no-one was actually listening. But to tell her, really tell her, about himself would be – well, at the very least a novel sensation. ‘If you’re sure you want to know. It isn’t that interesting.’
‘I bet it is,’ she said.
It occurred to him that he had never seen anyone look more tired in his entire life. So he talked.
When they had finished eating, it was obvious that she was finished. ‘Would you like a bath?’ he offered.
‘I had a shower at the police station. I don’t think I’ve got the strength for any more washing.’ The wine and the gin had done their work – her eyes were closing as she spoke.
‘OK. You go in the bathroom and clean your teeth while I make the bed up, and then you can just fall in.’
It didn’t take him a minute to whip on a sheet and a duvet cover. She came back from the bathroom as he was doing the second pillow. He switched on the bedside lamp and said, ‘I hope you sleep all right. If you need anything in the night, I’m just across there. Call out and I’ll hear you.’
She nodded, seeming not to have the strength even to say goodnight. He backed out and closed the door, and went back downstairs.
In the middle of the night he woke with a start to the realisation that someone was in the room with him, and was half out of bed before he remembered that Emily was in the house; then she advanced to his bedside and he could see her dimly in the light filtering through the curtains from the street lamp outside. She was wearing an outsize tee shirt which presumably did service instead of nightclothes, and he could see the gleam of the locket hanging against her chest. So she really did wear it all the time.
‘Are you all right?’ he asked.
‘I can’t stop shivering,’ she said in a low tone. Her arms were wrapped round herself and she was hunched as if in pain.
‘Can I get you another blanket? An aspirin? A hot drink?’
‘No. Thanks. Can – can I get in with you for a bit? Just for the company? I can’t—’
That sentence didn’t seem to have anywhere to go. Silently he opened the bed to her and she climbed in, and he lay down and took her in his arms. She felt icy cold and was quivering and rigid with it. He held her quietly and gradually she warmed up and the quivering grew less. And then she started to cry.
It was like a summer storm, short and violent. He held her, cradling her head against his shoulder while she wept as if it were being torn out of her, and the hot tears soaked his neck. At last the tears eased and the sobbing died down, like thunder retreating. When she was quiet, breathing steadily, he thought she had fallen asleep.
Very gently, he kissed the crown of her head, and felt things stirring in him that he had never felt before, emotions he had never thought to feel.
After a while she moved against him, almost languorously, and turned her face up to him. He moved his head back to look down at her and see what she wanted. He saw the gleam of her half-open eyes. She reached and took his hand from her back, brought it round and placed it on her breast, at the same time craning upwards and placing her lips against his. He resisted, afraid on so many levels it was bewildering. But she murmured, ‘Please. Please,’ against his mouth, holding his hand to her. He kissed her, tentatively, feeling his body getting away from his control. But her response was urgent, and she was pressing her body against him, kissing him as though it might save her life.
Well, who knew but that it might?
So he made love to her, half his mind splitting away with guilt and anxiety while the other half was faint with love and joy. Afterwards she fell asleep suddenly, instantly, as the kittens would sometimes do in the middle of play, without warning.
Early in the morning he woke and found her caressing him, and they did it again, with great tenderness, and this time, with all his mind.
Six
Voi Che Sapete
In the morning, Atherton got up quietly while Emily was still asleep, showered and dressed and went downstairs to feed the cats and let them out, and make coffee. He had no idea how she was going to feel, when she woke, about the events of the night. Would she regret them, blame him for ‘taking advantage of her’? At best there might be embarrassment, at worst blazing resentment. For himself, he wanted only to be with her all the time, a sensation he had not previously known. Even with Sue, to whom he had once proposed marriage, he had not envisaged spending every moment of the rest of his life in her company. The very idea would have made him nuts. Now, though he knew she must be exhausted, he longed for her to wake up so he could talk to her again.
Fortunately, or unfortunately depending on how you looked at it, the kits, not being used to having visitors in the house, thundered upstairs in their usual manner. As soon as he came downstairs in the morning they liked to race to the top full speed and fling themselves from the bedroom door on to the bed in one splendid Baryshnikov leap. They were gone before he could stop them and he distinctly heard Vash say ‘Wah!’ in astonishment, before the pair of them thundered back down with their tails in bloom and disappeared into the garden and under the ceanothus.
Atherton hastened upstairs. Emily was sitting up in bed, clutching the duvet to her chest, looking bleary. ‘What the hell was that?’ she asked thickly.
‘The cats. I’m sorry, they dashed off before I could stop them. I’ll keep them shut in downstairs now and you can go back to sleep.’
She rubbed her eyes. ‘You’re dressed,’ she said.
‘I have to go to work. But you can go back to sleep. You must need it.’
‘No, no,’ she said, beginning to wriggle to the edge of the bed. ‘I want to come in with you. I want to know what’s happening. When do you have to leave?’
‘About fifteen minutes. I was just making some coffee.’
‘Me for that,’ she said. ‘I’m a really quick dresser. I’ll be downstairs in five minutes. Don’t go without me.’
Well, at least she didn’t seem either embarrassed or angry, he thought, going downstairs again. It seemed like an excellent start – unless she’d completely forgotten the events of the night before? Oh, there was a depressing thought!
But when she appeared, really only five minutes later, she gave him a shy look as she took the mug of coffee from him and said, ‘About last night – I want you to know it wasn’t just, you know, Dad and everything. I hope you didn’t feel, well, forced into it.’
‘God, no!’ he said fervently, handing her a mug of coffee. ‘I was just hoping you didn’t feel I’d taken advantage of you.’
‘If I remember rightly, I was the one who made the advances. And it would have been hard for you to push me away, in the circumstances.’
‘Pushing you away was the last thing I wanted.’
‘I’m glad about that,’ she said. ‘Can we . . .? I don’t know how to put this . . .’
‘Carry on where we left off?’ he suggested.
‘Something like that.’ There was colour in her cheeks and she was looking down into the mug as if the coffee was a crystal ball.
‘I said you could stay here as long as you liked, and that still goes. Even more so.’
‘Thanks,’ she said. At that moment, fortunately, the kits came back, tiptoeing to the back door, boggling at her, and she put her mug down and hunkered, holding out her fingers to them. ‘Come on, you two, I’m not a monster. Isn’t it amazing how something as dainty as a cat can make so much noise? They sounded like a cattle stampede coming upstairs.’
So it seemed that everything was all right.
Slider woke feeling unrested, and guessed from the heaviness of Joanna’s movements that she felt the same. When she came back from the bathroom she put her arms round him and said, ‘I half wish I didn’t have these dates. I don’t want to be away from you. I hate that man.’
‘I feel the same way.’
He cooked breakfast while she packed an overnight bag, which he took out to the car, looking carefully in all directions before each movement. But all seemed quiet and he did not feel the sensation of being watched. He supposed even crazed psychopaths had to sleep, and they were deliberately starting off early, before anything that would be normal time for either of them. Even so he watched the rear view all the time, and scrutinised every car that came in sight for unusual behaviour. In the station yard he transferred her things to her own car.
‘Be careful,’ he said, hugging her. ‘Change speeds and lanes every now and then and watch for anyone following you. I don’t think anyone will, but it’s best to keep an eye out. If you’re worried about anything, phone me.’
She held him close for a moment, and he felt the baby kick him through both their sets of clothes. Then she pulled away, releasing him to the work he had to do. ‘Be brilliant, Inspector.’
‘I will. Be talented, beautiful and desirable.’
‘How can I help it?’
There were two telephone messages for him on his desk and he sat down and returned the calls while it was quiet. The first was from Freddie Cameron.
‘No surprises, old bean,’ he said. ‘Death was caused by the blow to the head. Would have been virtually instantaneous. We’re talking about something rounded, possibly padded, very heavy, and wielded with great force. Cease looking for frail women, old-age pensioners or children.’
‘Isn’t it always the last person you suspect?’
‘Not in this life. One other thing – there were traces of oil on the pockets, where chummy went through them, and a large mark on the sleeve of the jacket, where I suppose it was pulled back to expose the watch. From first tests it looks like motor oil of some kind. Do you want it tested further?’
‘Might as well. I don’t think there’ll be any budgetary restraints on this one. Send off the best sample to Les Patterson, will you?’
‘Ah, the alien-substances chappie. Will do. Anything else?’
‘I don’t think so, at the moment, thanks, Freddie.’
The second message was from Bob Bailey. Slider tried his office, and was told he was at the site already, and rang him there on his mobile.
‘I thought you’d like to know that we came up with more oil traces,’ Bailey said. ‘On the files in that filing cabinet and on the front door. I think we can get a good enough sample to analyse, possibly get a match when you get a suspect. D’you want to go ahead?’
‘Yes, please. Bung it off to Les Patterson, will you? Freddie Cameron says he’s found oil on the clothes, too.’
‘Careless buggers, criminals,’ said Bailey.
‘Anything else?’
‘Footprints by the filing cabinet. Two, where he stood still, probably while he was looking through the drawer. They’re really only impressions in the pile of the carpet, so I can’t get much for you – no nice whorls and lugs – but it looks to be some kind of heavy boot, not the leather-soled city shoes the victim was wearing. And smaller. Victim wore a size eleven, and these are a nine at the most – I’d say possibly even an eight, given that with a boot the outside profile tends to be bigger than with a shoe. Any good?’
‘I don’t know yet. Were the boot marks oily too?’
‘No, we didn’t find any particular traces connected with them. I suppose he will have walked off anything coming up the stairs and along the corridor. Do you want me to try and trace them back? The carpet outside the flat doesn’t have much pile on it,’ he said doubtfully.
‘Well, you can have a look, but don’t knock yourself out. There’ve been too many people in and out.’
‘OK. Well, good luck. There’s a stack of press people here already. I got in early to avoid them but there’s a lot of media interest in this one.’
‘Don’t I know it,’ said Slider.
In the car on the way to the station, Atherton asked, ‘Why did your father leave the BBC? It seemed such an odd thing to do. I would have thought he was at the top of the tree there.’
‘It seemed odd to me, too,’ she said. ‘Until I took into account the change in the BBC culture. Dad had been there for ever, and he couldn’t stand the new regime. He felt – we both feel – that the news ought to be taken seriously. The Beeb kept dumbing it down until the Six was little more than a magazine programme and the Ten not much better. And he didn’t like the editorial control. He felt a journalist ought to be allowed to tell it the way it seemed to him. Well, of course, being Dad he didn’t keep his feelings to himself. He spoke out a little too frankly for the bosses, made himself unpopular, and was invited to leave.’
‘Sacked?’ Atherton asked.
She made a comical face. ‘Nobody’s sacked from the BBC. But they have ways of punishing you if you don’t go when you’re invited. He was ready to go, anyway. He was fed up with it, and wanted a change. He was at the top of his game and he didn’t think he’d have any difficulty in getting another job. And he didn’t. He started with the DTI the moment his notice at the Beeb ended.’
‘But why there?’
‘Oh, it was one of the government’s periodical recruitment drives of outsiders. Every now and then they have a spasm of thinking they need media savvy types with outside experience. And of course everyone had heard of Dad. The news that he and the Beeb weren’t on speaking terms any more filtered through and they were thrilled with the idea of having someone who knew the organisation from the inside but didn’t like it.’ She gave him a frank look. ‘They’re pretty paranoid about Auntie, you know.’
‘And did he like it there?’
‘He did at first. He said it was interesting seeing government from the inside, and quite exciting to be close to the seat of power. But he never thought much of Sid Andrew, and he got frustrated at the way things were done.’
‘Specifically?’
‘Oh, I don’t know really. He didn’t go into detail with me. I think he just felt too many things were happening behind closed doors. He was never a great one for conspiracy,’ she said with a wry smile.
‘Why did he choose the DTI?’
‘He didn’t – they chose him. He’d had a lot of experience covering industrial relations and disputes before he became a foreign correspondent, so I suppose they thought he’d speak their language. But mostly I think they just wanted to have the kudos of getting Ed Stonax of the BBC on to their books. I think he felt he was pretty under-used.’
She lapsed into silence and as he had to concentrate just then on the traffic there was a silence between them. When he could look again, he saw her staring at her hands, her head bowed. It was not a happy posture.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said,
‘do you mind talking about him?’
She roused herself from her reverie. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Talking about him helps me stop thinking about what’s happened. I can’t take it in, except in tiny flashes, and then it hurts too much. I just want to see him and talk to him about it, because he always had the best ideas about everything. Is that stupid? To want to talk to someone about who murdered them?’
‘Who would know better?’ said Atherton.
She screwed up her eyes in pain. ‘I hate that word. Murdered. I can’t take it. Not Dad! Not him!’
He reached across and touched her hand and hers folded quickly round his and hung on, as though for salvation. ‘We’ll be there soon. It’s the next turning. Do you want to go off and do other things? You’ve got a key for the house so you can come and go as you like.’
She squeezed his hand and then drew hers back. ‘I haven’t got anything else to do,’ she said. ‘And I want to help. I want to come in with you.’
‘All right, then,’ Atherton said, turning into Stanlake Road.
Slider looked surprised. ‘What’s come over you?’
‘I think you ought to know the answer to that, seeing you started with Joanna when she was a witness in the Austin case.’
‘And as I remember you thoroughly disapproved.’
‘And you said she wasn’t a material witness, which she wasn’t, only happened to know the deceased. Emily wasn’t even in the country. She’s just the victim’s daughter.’
‘All the same, at a moment when she’s in emotional turmoil—’
‘This is a moral objection, then, not a police procedural one?’ Atherton asked with his head up.
‘It’s not like you,’ Slider said.
‘No, it isn’t. And for the record, she came on to me. And I’ve no intention of letting her down. I’m extremely serious about her.’
Slider surveyed his friend’s face and was baffled. Atherton was a serial womaniser and he was so attractive to the opposite sex he had to fight them off with a plank. But to be bedding a woman when she’d only found out that day that her father had been murdered . . . When Emily Stonax was back in her right mind, she might well bring a complaint, and though Atherton hadn’t broken any specific rule it could be viewed as misconduct. As to including her in the investigation – would it make her more or less likely to want to sue if she saw the way the department operated? On the other hand, she might have useful insights to share. Joanna had been extremely helpful during the Austin case.
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