Shallow Grave (Bill Slider Mystery)

by Harrod-Eagles, Cynthia

  ‘She never said. I s’pose she was just hinting she’d take off one day. She was always saying she was bored with Eddie. I mean, he’s a nice enough bloke, but he’s dull, and she’s a bit of a bright spark, know what I mean? I never thought she’d stop with him for ever. Ambitious girl, was Jen.’

  ‘So that’s why you agreed to cover for her on Tuesday night?’ Slider asked. ‘She blackmailed you into it?’

  ‘Well, yes, I suppose you could say that. And of course, once I’d covered for her, I couldn’t let Lin find out. That’s why I couldn’t say anything when you came round the pub. But you won’t let on, will you? I mean, I didn’t do anything wrong, just told a little porkie or two, and what man doesn’t do that to the missus?’

  ‘Do you know where Jennifer went?’

  Potter’s look was eager now, willing to help. ‘No, I don’t, and that’s straight up. She just said she had to see someone. Well, naturally I thought it was another man. She was – excited, see? All worked up and – sort of electric, like it was a bit dangerous. She liked a bit of danger, did our Jen. That’s why she liked using clients’ houses – give her a charge to think someone might walk in. I said to her, You’ll go too far one day, I said. I s’pose,’ he added dully, ‘that’s what happened in the end.’

  ‘So she left at about seven thirty, and you’ve nothing more you can tell me?’

  ‘That’s right. Old Eddie only just missed her. When he came in the first time and I went to chuck him out, he said he’d just seen Jen drive away and he wanted to know where she was going. I said she’d gone home with a headache, and he said I was lying, because she’d gone in the other direction, so I said in that case I didn’t know where she was because she’d told me she was going home. Well, I didn’t know where she’d gone, did I? I s’pose he realised I was telling the truth – anyway he seemed to believe me and away he went. But the second time he come in he was pretty drunk, and he said, I know you know where she’s gone, he said, and if you don’t tell me I’ll smash your face in. I said to him if there was any smashing of faces in, it’d be me that done it to him, and I told him to go home and sober up, because I didn’t know where Jen was and that was all about it. Well, after a bit I managed to get rid of him, and that was that.’

  ‘You don’t think he knew about you and Jennifer?’

  ‘No,’ Potter said, with clear certainty. ‘He’d have said if he did.’ Interesting, Slider thought: evidently Eddie hadn’t believed the guv’nor of the Mimpriss. It just went to prove that jealousy is all in the mind. ‘No,’ Jack said, ‘he just thought I knew who she was with and wouldn’t tell him, but I think he believed me in the end that I didn’t know. Because I didn’t, did I?’ This accidental cleaving unto veracity seemed to give him some perilous comfort.

  ‘Do you know who else Jennifer Andrews was – seeing?’

  Potter shook his head. ‘Well, no. I don’t know for certain that she was seeing anyone else. I just wouldn’t be surprised if she was. I mean, no-one found out about her and me, did they?’

  It was possible, of course, that the landlord of the Mimpriss was merely making mischief and guessing right by accident; but the picture Slider was forming of Jennifer Andrews suggested that she liked to wield her power over people and enjoy the credit for her bad behaviour. If he read her right there would be at least one other person who knew about Jack Potter, but it would be someone who couldn’t make use of the information, as Potter couldn’t about the last mystery appointment.

  He no longer wondered that someone had wanted to murder her. He only wondered there had not been a queue; he’d have taken a low number himself. But it was still obvious who was clutching ticket number one. It was time, Slider thought, to have another chat with Eddie. He must remember, if sympathy for this long-suffering man threatened to overcome him, that if Freddie Cameron were right, it had not been a murder of impulse, of the man driven to a hasty lashing out he instantly regretted. If she had been smothered while comatose, then a degree of premeditation had been present. He must have waited for her to fall asleep: plenty of time for temper to cool and better instincts to take over.

  When he returned to his room, he found Hollis looking for him. Hollis, a scrawny man with failing hair, bulbous pale green eyes and a truly terrible moustache, was also cursed with a Mancunian accent and a sort of strangulated counter-tenor voice. He covered his aspects by cultivating an air of gentle self-mockery, as though he were weird by choice. ‘Sitrep, guv,’ he said, as Slider came along the corridor.

  ‘You what?’ Slider said absently.

  ‘We’ve got the list of calls for the Andrews house from BT,’ Hollis explained. ‘None at all made on the Tuesday.’

  ‘None?’

  ‘Not a tinkle. So either they weren’t fond of talking—’

  ‘Or they weren’t home,’ Slider concluded. ‘Well, it all helps.’

  ‘We’ve got the list from Meacher’s mobile, and we’re putting names to numbers now. Andrews didn’t have a mobile, but Mrs A. had a car phone, and we’re waiting for that list. Oh, and Norma says the Andrews’ finances check out. He had a loan to finance building the house, but the repayments have been met all right, and there’s money coming in as well as going out.’

  ‘Okay. Anything come yet from Forensic?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘Oh, well, I don’t suppose it’ll be much help when it does. That’s the trouble with domestics.’

  ‘Send you clean round the bend,’ Hollis agreed solemnly.

  ‘I’m going to have another chat with our prime suspect,’ Slider decided. ‘You’d better come with me.’

  Nicholls was custody sergeant, a lean, handsome Scot from the far north-west, with blue eyes and a voice like silk emulsion. ‘Come to get a confession?’ he asked, walking Slider and Hollis along to Andrews’ cell.

  ‘It’d be nice to get him to talk at all. Mostly he just stares at the wall. Interviews with him are as exciting as a Thomas Hardy novel,’ Slider sighed.

  ‘Well, I hope you bring it home before I go on my holidays,’ Nicholls said. ‘It’d be like missing the last episode of Murder One.’

  ‘That gives me two weeks, doesn’t it? Where are you off to, by the way?’

  ‘Norway.’

  ‘I’ve never seen the point of Norway. It’s just Scotland on steroids.’

  ‘Och, Mary fancied it for the kids. They love canoeing.’

  ‘A sort of fjord fiesta, then?’

  Nicholls grinned. ‘Lots of healthy outdoor activities to wear the wee anes out, so that we get quiet evenings alone for once.’

  ‘For once? That’s how you got six kids in the first place.’

  ‘Oh, aye, I forgot.’

  ‘You’d better not forget again,’ Hollis warned. ‘You can’t afford any more on a sergeant’s pay.’

  ‘Nae worries, old chum. Don’t you remember, I’ve had the Snip?’

  ‘How could anyone forget?’ Slider winced. Nicholls adored his wife, and had wanted to curb his rampant fertility without having Mary risk the Pill. Now with the enthusiasm of the convert – or, as Slider thought of it, of the tail-less fox – he was a crusader for the operation. Pale, doubled-up young constables hurrying out of the canteen were a sure sign that Nutty was in there on his break, campaigning.

  ‘You should try it, Bill,’ he said seriously. ‘No more worries, no more condoms. It makes a vas deferens to your sex-life, I can tell you.’

  ‘The condommed man ate a hearty breakfast,’ Slider murmured, as they reached the cell door. Nicholls brought the key up to the lock. ‘Can I have a look at him first?’ Slider asked. He slid back the wicket and applied his eye to the spy-hole. Eddie Andrews gave the impression of having settled into his cell, as if he neither expected nor hoped to be released. He was sitting on the edge of the bunk with his hands clasped loosely between his knees, and didn’t move or look up at the sounds at the door. Slider stepped back.

  ‘Is he like that all the time?’

  Nicholls h
ad a look too, and nodded his handsome head. ‘Just sits quiet like a good wee boy. No trouble at all.’

  ‘Eating all right?’

  ‘Eats and drinks, says thank you—’

  ‘Thank you?’

  ‘I told ye it was bad. He asks no questions. Doesn’t want a solicitor. Doesn’t want anyone told he’s here.’ He met Slider’s eyes gravely. ‘I don’t like it, Bill. The quiet, obliging ones are often the ones you lose. It can mean they’ve made up their minds to go. We’ve got his belt and shoelaces, but they’ll always find a way if they’re determined.’

  ‘You think he’s one of those?’

  Nicholls hesitated. ‘I’m not just sure. It could be he did it and wants to be punished. Or it could be shock, and he’s just not connecting up. But he’s not in a normal state of mind, and that’s a fact.’

  ‘All right, Nutty, thanks for the tip. Can I have him out?’

  Slider signed for Andrews and they took him along to the tape room. Andrews was docile, almost dreamy, as Slider went through the preliminary procedures. He needed shaking out of it.

  ‘Now then, Eddie, you told us that on Tuesday night you had one drink in the Mimpriss and then went home, and stayed home all evening watching television. Is that right?’ Andrews nodded. ‘For the tape, please.’

  ‘Yes,’ Andrews said, in a lacklustre voice. ‘We’ve been through all this. Why can’t you leave me alone? I’ve got nothing to say.’

  ‘What programmes did you watch on the television?’

  ‘I’ve told you before. I don’t remember.’

  ‘Just tell me one.’ No answer. ‘Did you watch the football?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, after a hesitation.

  ‘Who was playing?’

  ‘I don’t remember.’

  Hollis intervened, in a voice of utter amazement, ‘You don’t remember the Man United–Aston Villa match? That wicked goal in extra time by Sheringham?’ He mimed a header into the net.

  ‘Oh – yes – I remember now,’ Andrews said, blinking at him. ‘That was it. The football.’

  Hollis shook his head sadly. ‘Man United didn’t play that night. It was an international.’

  ‘Come on, Eddie, don’t waste my time!’ Slider took the ball neatly on his toe. ‘We know you weren’t home watching television. You were out on a drunken pub crawl. You were in the Mimpriss three times. The guv’nor there’s told us about the argument you had with him, over what your wife was up to.’

  That got a reaction. His hands on the table tightened. ‘My wife wasn’t up to anything.’

  ‘That’s not what Mr Folger says,’ Hollis said, with a knowing grin. ‘He knew all about your wife and Jack Potter. Fruity stuff!’

  ‘It’s not true,’ Andrews cried. ‘Don’t you talk like that about her! Brian Folger’s a foul-mouthed liar!’

  ‘And then later you were in the First And Last,’ Slider picked up the pass, ‘telling the barman there your wife was cheating on you—’

  ‘She wasn’t! It’s not true.’

  ‘—and that when you found her you’d wring her neck.’

  ‘It’s not true!’

  Slider leaned forward a little. ‘Eddie, you were there and you said those things. We know that. We’ve got witnesses to everything you did that evening, the pubs you went to and the times you were there and what you said. There’s no point in going on lying when we’ve got witnesses. Why not give up and tell us the truth? You must have had reasons for what you did. I want to know what they are. I want to hear your side of the story.’

  Andrews looked across the table at him, and the little spurt of energy that had been generated died away. He sighed. ‘I’ve got nothing to say to you, except what I’ve already said.’

  ‘You’ve got to tell me, Eddie,’ Slider said gently but insistently. ‘Because, you see, it’s looking really bad for you. You left the First And Last at ten past eleven, vowing to murder your wife. And some time between then and one o’clock, she was murdered.’ Andrews kept silent, looking down at his hands again.

  ‘You said she didn’t come home all night, but her car was there on the hard standing in the morning. How did it get there, if she didn’t come home? Did you drive it back from the place where you murdered her?’

  No answer.

  ‘Her handbag with her car keys in it was found in your pickup. How did it get there if you didn’t put it there?’

  No answer.

  ‘Eddie, we’ll find out, just as we found out what you were doing the rest of the evening. We always find out. So why don’t you tell me about it now, get it all out in the open? I promise you you’ll feel better.’ Andrews sighed. ‘I want to hear your side,’ Slider urged. ‘You must have been under terrible pressure, to do what you did, because I know you loved her. You were driven mad by her behaviour. I understand that. I know what she was like.’

  Now he looked up. ‘You don’t!’ he said, and his red-rimmed eyes blazed briefly. ‘You don’t know anything about her – none of you!’

  ‘All right, you tell me, then,’ Slider said, settling back as if the story was just beginning.

  ‘It was all my fault!’ Andrews cried. ‘She didn’t do anything. It was all down to me.’

  ‘Yes,’ Slider nodded encouragingly, while Hollis almost held his breath, trying to turn himself into paint on the wall. ‘Go on.’

  ‘I was jealous. But I had no right to think those things. I loved her, and I thought bad things about her, and now she’s dead!’

  ‘I’m so sorry, Eddie,’ Slider said tenderly. ‘Tell me all about it. After you left the First And Last. Where did you meet her?’ Andrews stared, haggard, bristly, flame-eyed, goaded. ‘Tell me what you did to her.’

  ‘I didn’t kill her!’ he cried.

  ‘All right, but tell me what you did. Where did you go after the First And Last?’

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t remember. I just wandered about all night. Every time I went past the house her car wasn’t there, and it made me mad wondering where she was. So I just wandered. I fell asleep for a bit, sitting in the van. And then in the morning I went to work, straight to Mrs Hammond’s. I didn’t go home because I didn’t want to find out she’d been out all night. I thought she was with another man. But I had no right, you see! I thought bad things about her, and they weren’t true! If I’d only trusted her! And now she’s dead, and it’s my fault, all my fault.’ He put his head down into his hands again, and made moaning noises.

  Slider felt Hollis looking at him, waiting for him to pull the rabbit out of the hat, perform the coup de grâce – or what Atherton called the lawnmower. Oh, the responsibility of greatness! ‘Tell me, then, Eddie. Get it off your conscience. Tell me how you killed her.’

  Outside the tape room, Hollis shoved his hands deep in his pockets, hunching his spindly-looking shoulders like a depressed heron, and said, ‘Oh, bollocks. He was that close, guv.’

  ‘Tell me,’ Slider sighed.

  Nicholls came back. ‘Any joy?’ He read their faces. ‘You couldn’t crack him, even after I gave you a full psychiatric profile?’

  Slider smiled unwillingly. ‘Come off it, Nutty. You haven’t got the figure to play Cracker.’

  ‘Robbie Coltrane hasn’t got my voice,’ Nicholls countered modestly.

  ‘There is that,’ Slider agreed.

  ‘Is that right you’re playing the female lead in Mr Wetherspoon’s opera?’ Hollis asked.

  ‘Operetta,’ Nicholls corrected. He had famously once sung the Queen of the Night aria from Zauberflöte in a police charity concert, but Commander Wetherspoon’s next production was to scale lesser heights. ‘HMS Pinafore. I’m the captain’s daughter.’

  ‘Well, everyone likes Gilbert and Sullivan,’ Hollis said reasonably.

  ‘That’s his reasoning,’ Nicholls said neutrally. ‘He’s sinking to the occasion.’

  It was a new age, Wetherspoon had told the assembled troops during one of his recent descents on the Shepherd’s Bush nick from the Valhalla
of Area Headquarters. ‘Caring is the watchword. Relating to the People. We are the People’s police service.’ There had been a distinct sound of retching at that point, but Wetherspoon was one of those elevated beings who didn’t care whether he was popular or not, and he had carried on unmoved. ‘It’s not enough to Relate, we have to be Seen to Relate. It’s all about Trust, boys and girls. Above all, we mustn’t appear élitist.’ So it was goodbye, Wolfgang Amadeus, hello, Ruler of the Queen’s Nayvee.

  ‘Never mind, you’ll look lovely in a bonnet,’ Slider said comfortingly. There was nothing in the least effeminate about Nicholls: it was just that his features were so classical, he looked equally good in a dress or trousers.

  ‘It could be worse,’ he said philosophically. ‘At least it’s still music. There was a moment when he was toying with Aspects of Love.’

  ‘So what now?’ Hollis asked, as he and Slider headed back upstairs.

  ‘We’ll have to do it the hard way.’

  ‘Oh, that’ll be a nice change.’

  ‘Someone must have seen him,’ Slider said. ‘Someone always does. And we haven’t had the forensic reports yet. If necessary we’ll go over the whole of west London on our hands and knees.’

  Hollis smiled behind his ghastly moustache. ‘When you say “we”, sir, I assume your own hands and knees will be otherwise engaged.’

  ‘Naturally. I’ve got to go and see the Super.’

  Detective Superintendent Fred ‘the Syrup’ Porson was in his room, pacing about dictating to a hand-held recorder. He was hardly ever seen sitting down – a man of constant, restless energy. When Slider appeared in the open doorway he raised his eyebrows in greeting as he finished his sentence, clicked the machine off and barked, ‘Come in. Enter. I was just going to send for you.’

  Slider came in and entered, almost simultaneously. Porson was a tall, bony man with a surprisingly generous nose, a chin like a worn nub of pumice-stone, and deep, cavernous eyes below craggy, jutting eyebrows that could have supported a small seagull colony. It was hard, however, to notice any of these things when looking at him: the eye was ineluctably drawn to the amazing rug which had given him his sobriquet. It wasn’t just that it was ill-fitting, it was an entirely different colour from his remaining natural hair, which prompted the constant nagging question: why?