They had argued heatedly for a while, and then suddenly Jennifer had back-pedalled, apologised for the threat, said she didn’t mean it, and started sweet-talking him instead.
‘It was all lovey-dovey then. She was very persuasive when she wanted. I couldn’t resist her,’ Defreitas admitted. ‘She started sort of rubbing herself against me, and then she suggested us going down on the embankment and – and doing it.’
He hadn’t taken much persuading. After the argument his blood was up, and much else besides. They went down the footpath and climbed over the fence onto the embankment. There was no-one around – Defreitas didn’t think they’d been seen. They went into the bushes: ‘We’d done it there before.’ He took off his leather jacket and spread it on the ground and they had sex.
‘We weren’t there long. I mean, it was a quick job. Truth to tell, I think she had her mind on other things. I think she was just …’ he hesitated ‘… making sure of me. She’d got me mad, and now she was softening me up again.’
An echo in Slider’s mind: stock-taking. Who had said that of Jennifer?
‘And as soon as it was over,’ Defreitas went on, ‘she was up and off.’ She had straightened her clothes and her hair, and they had walked back to the footbridge. ‘She told me to go the other way – over the footbridge and down Wenhaston Road – in case anyone saw us. She went the other way, back to the square. She said she had someone else to see. I said at that time of night? Because it was about twenty to twelve by then. She just laughed and turned away. And that’s the last time I saw her, until—’
Defreitas had gone straight home, arriving at about five to midnight. His wife was already in bed. He had washed, cleaned his teeth, and got in beside her and slept. His wife was not speaking to him the next morning, and he had got into work late for the early shift, which started at six; and so on his arrival had been sent straight round to the Old Rectory to discover the cold body of the woman he had inseminated warm only hours earlier. Slider, furious as he was with the man, could sympathise with Defreitas in that ghastly situation.
In his rage, Porson towered like a demiglot. ‘I find it totally incredulous that an officer of your experience could behave in such a way! Do you think you’re some kind of special case, that you can just flaunt the rules whenever you feel like it?’
‘No, sir.’
‘No, sir? Is that all you’ve got to say? I don’t think you realise the trouble you’re in, Defreitas. Your lamentacious conduct has put this whole case in jeopardy. As to your career—’
Defreitas tried a few feeble words of defence. ‘Sir, as far as my relationship with Jennifer Andrews is concerned—’
Porson, walking fast back and forth across the office, turned at the end of a width with such a jerk his hair visibly swivelled before his face caught up with it. ‘Yes, and if this was twenty years ago, I’d have had something to say about that score, as well! It’s incomprehensive to me that you could even contemplate an affair of that sort. When I joined the Job, a policeman had to be beyond repute, in his private life as well as on duty. The public demanded impeachable behaviour at all times, and for a married officer to have carnival knowledge of a woman other than his own wife would have been a disciplinary offence of the severest consequence, I can tell you!’
When the mute and miserable Defreitas had eventually been sent on his way, Porson signalled to Slider to shut the door, and, on a last little spurt of anger, walked another width and muttered, ‘These young officers don’t seem to learn anything! Think they can just carry on any way they please, as if the Job was just a job. That kind of attitude is a milestone round our necks. It’s no wonder the public don’t trust us!’
‘What about disciplinary action, sir?’
‘That’s for Uniform to decide. Suspended pending investigation certainly. After that, I don’t know. Not my providence, thank God. But I shall have to report, and I shall make a strong recommendation that he gets more than his knuckles rapped for concealing information. What’s more to the impact, how does this affect the case?’
‘It removes quite a bit of the evidence, or rather the suppositions, against Andrews. And of course it blows a hole through his confession – which was already a bit flimsy to my mind.’
‘Yes, you never were happy with it, were you?’ Porson stood still and looked straight at Slider. ‘Do you think Defreitas did it?’
Slider looked straight back. ‘No, sir.’ He explained the questions which Defreitas as suspect would leave unanswered. ‘We ought to be able to substantiate his story. They know him at the Goat, so they ought to be able to say when he arrived and left, and Karen, the barmaid, will probably remember the phone call.’
‘That doesn’t clear him of the murder.’
‘No, sir. But even if Mrs Defreitas doesn’t know exactly what time he came in, I think it’s unlikely he could have got out of bed again in the middle of the night to go and move the body without her knowing. I think we can clear Defreitas all right. The infuriating thing is that we’ll have to waste manpower doing it.’
Porson nodded. ‘I’ll see he gets his come-uppance, don’t worry.’
‘To my reasoning, Eddie Andrews is still our best suspect,’ Slider went on. ‘For one thing, putting the body in the trench – that only made sense for Andrews, who would be the one to fill the hole with concrete the next morning. For anyone else, putting her there wasn’t hiding her, it just hastened discovery. And for another, there’s this thing about making her face up again. It doesn’t make sense. As an action, it’s just bonkers. And who but Andrews would have been bonkers in that particular way about killing her?’
‘But still, you don’t think it was Andrews?’ Porson asked cannily.
‘It isn’t that, sir,’ Slider said. ‘I don’t see who else it could have been; but we just don’t have enough evidence against him.’
‘Well, there’s still plenty of phone calls coming in.’ Porson said philosophically. ‘We’ll have to let him go again, but if he did it, you’ll find the evidence all right. And if it wasn’t him, something will break sooner or later. Don’t worry about it. You’ll get there. I’ve got every confidence in you.’
Just when you think you’ve heard it all, Slider thought, the old man comes down all sensible and kind and touches your heart.
* * *
Back in his own room he found Atherton waiting for him. ‘News?’ Slider asked, reading his lieutenant’s eye.
‘Two of them,’ Atherton said. ‘The owner of the Transit that was parked just down from the footpath has come forward. Renker’s checking him out, just to be absolutely sure, but it all looks perfectly innocent.’
‘Oh, well, that clears up a point,’ Slider said. ‘What’s the other?’
Atherton eyed him. ‘I don’t know if you’ll like it. We’ve had a call from a long-distance lorry driver – bloke called Pat McAteer. He was driving an artic on Tuesday night – well, he’d been driving all day Tuesday, tacho notwithstanding, but we’d better not go into that if we want his co-operation. Anyway, he was heading for a ferry crossing on Wednesday morning and he’d got a bit ahead of his schedule so he pulled off the motorway to catch a couple of hours’ sleep in his cab in a safe lay-by he knows on the A40. When he pulls into the lay-by he’s not pleased to see someone else is there before him.’
‘Don’t tell me!’
‘A light-coloured Ford pickup – light blue, he thinks. He’s going to move on when he sees the driver’s sleeping in the cab, so he reckons he’s safe enough. He sets his alarm to wake himself in good time and gets into his bunk and goes to sleep. When he pulls out in the morning, the pickup’s still there, and the bloke’s still asleep.’
‘Does he remember the number?’
‘Enough of it. I suppose we’ll have to check the other possible combinations through the PNC, but I’m willing to bet it was Eddie’s all right.’
‘Well, we knew he must have gone somewhere for the rest of the night,’ Slider said. ‘Get someone out ther
e to check if there’s an oil stain, and try and get a sample. Forensic may be able to match the oil from the pickup, to give us a bit of corroboration.’ He read Atherton’s face. ‘All right, what’s the catch? What time did McAteer arrive and what time did he leave?’
‘He pulled into the lay-by at one o’clock, and he pulled out again at five. So you see the problem? We’ve got Eddie missing from just after eleven, when he left the First and Last, to about six forty-five when he turns up at the Rectory. Even driving like the clappers, it’s going to take Eddie half an hour to get to the lay-by – three-quarters, really, in a pickup – and the same to get back.’
‘So the alibi doesn’t cover him for the actual time of the murder – supposed actual time.’
‘Yes, but when would he have had time to lay out the body? Suppose he fell upon her the instant she left Defreitas, at eleven forty-five; give him fifteen minutes to do the murdering, he’s only got an hour to conceal the body and get back to the lay-by.’
‘And we know she wasn’t put straight into the trench,’ Slider said. ‘She was left sitting up somewhere for a couple of hours. Of course, she could have been sitting up in the back of the pickup.’
‘So we’ve got two possibilities,’ Atherton said. ‘Either Eddie slept in the cab until, say, two a.m., drove back to the Rectory – quarter to three – shifted the body, laid it out, did the makeup – got to allow an hour for that – quarter to four – and then drove back—’
‘To the same lay-by—’
‘Arriving at half past four in order to be seen by the lorry driver at five, and then slept, or pretended to sleep, until six when he left to go back to work in order to fill in the trench – which is physically possible—’
‘And which is pure Vaudeville.’
‘Or he was there and asleep in his cab between one and five—’
‘Which means he wasn’t the murderer, and we’ve got to start all over again from nothing,’ Slider said glumly.
‘Even William Hill wouldn’t give you odds on that,’ Atherton said. ‘As Mr Porson would say, it’s back to the drawing-pin.’
Atherton volunteered to give Slider a lift home.
‘Haven’t you got a date, or anything?’ Slider asked.
‘Not even anything. But you shouldn’t have to ask that. Don’t you know Sue’s doing Milton Keynes as well as Joanna?’
‘Oh,’ said Slider, unsure whether that was a snub or not. He sat quietly for a bit, watching Atherton from the corner of his eye as he drove. Atherton drove well and stylishly, as he did most things – perhaps a little on the generous side when it came to accelerating and braking, but that was the way of youth. As a long-term married man Slider had got used to thinking of Atherton as younger than he actually was. But his age was showing in his face now, after the trauma of his wounding. The portrait had been brought down from the attic: he would probably never get back that fine careless rapture.
Slider wondered what the score was between him and Sue. His last answer might have been a snub, or an irony, or a revelation of the truth; but Slider was naturally delicate of enquiring into a colleague’s personal life. Then he thought, What the hell? He can always tell me to mind my own business.
‘So is it on again between you and Sue?’ he asked, as unprovocatively as he could.
Atherton swivelled an eye briefly. ‘What do you care?’ It was said flippantly, not with rancour.
‘Self-defence. She’s Joanna’s friend. If you upset her, she’ll complain to Jo, and Jo will come down on me for damages.’
‘Bollocks. Just admit you’re nosy.’
‘Don’t tell me,’ Slider said, looking ostentatiously out of the window. ‘I wouldn’t listen now if you begged me.’
After a moment, Atherton said, ‘We’re going out again. How serious it is I don’t know yet.’ All the flippancy had dropped from his delivery, and the sudden stripping away of defences made Slider nervous. There was a balance and a distance that had to be maintained between working colleagues. Once he and Atherton had kept it effortlessly, but since Joanna, and particularly since the wounding, it had been shifting about like a sand dune on fast forward. Unsure of its present position, Slider didn’t say anything; and into the silence, like any victim of interview-technique, Atherton gave more. ‘I missed her. Even before I got wounded. God knows why. I mean, she’s not glamorous or exciting—’ Slider glanced at him, and he interpreted it easily enough. ‘That’s always been a minimum requirement. After all, I have a reputation to keep up,’ he protested.
‘You’re not that shallow,’ said Slider.
‘Don’t over-estimate me,’ Atherton said with a touch of bitterness. ‘I have been just that shallow. And don’t forget you can drown in an inch of water.’
That sounded so profound they both had to think about it for a moment.
Then Atherton resumed. ‘All those weeks in hospital gave me time to think. I’d always been so terrified of getting involved, but I remembered you saying to me once that there was no alternative, that if you weren’t involved you weren’t anything.’
‘Did I? I’m hardly one to dish out advice.’
‘No, you’re right. Whatever you get wrong,’ and his tone suggested it was legion, ‘you’re in there, facing the balls.’
‘Eh?’
‘At the crease. Batting. I thought you’d like a cricketing analogy.’
‘This conversation is getting weird,’ Slider said. ‘Just tell me how come you got in touch with Sue again.’
‘I wanted to see her,’ Atherton said simply, and then added with deeper honesty, ‘I was peeved. I thought she ought to have been more attentive, considering my plight. And I thought, considering what a fabulous catch I was, she ought to chase me a bit. That’s what I’m used to. When Joanna said that with Sue I had to make the running, I thought, Dream on, Phyllis! But when I managed to disengage the ego for a bit, I decided I might just give it a try.’ He grimaced. ‘Anything for a new experience.’
‘She’s a nice person,’ Slider said, ignoring the self-mockery. This was serious, he could see.
‘She is,’ Atherton agreed. ‘And she’s seen me at my worst. That’s a comfort.’
‘And since she’s not glamorous and exciting, you don’t have to be on your mettle all the time,’ Slider suggested.
Atherton looked hurt. ‘That was a bit blunt. You really do think I’m shallow.’
‘Spot of irony,’ Slider said. ‘As it happens, I think she probably is exciting. I mean, look at Joanna.’
‘Yes,’ Atherton said, accepting the shorthand. There was a silence while he eased round a right-turner who wanted to occupy the whole road, and then he went on. ‘When I was wounded, I lost a sort of – integrity. That maniac made a hole in me – literally and figuratively. My shell wasn’t whole and perfect any more.’
‘Yes,’ Slider said. He couldn’t have put it into words, but he knew what he meant.
‘I’m afraid,’ Atherton admitted starkly, ‘and I hate it. Hate it! I feel as if something’s been taken away from me, and I resent it like hell.’ He paused, and went on in a different voice, ‘And then, I missed her, and I can’t afford to cope with that as well as everything else.’ He glanced sideways again. ‘These days I see you looking at me, wondering if I’m going to make it.’
‘I don’t—’ Slider began, but Atherton stopped him.
‘You do, but it’s all right; I wonder too.’
‘You’ll make it,’ Slider said, with a great deal more certainty than he felt. He wasn’t always sure about himself, let alone his damaged companion.
‘But I don’t think I can do it on my own. Not any more.’
‘Well,’ Slider said again, ‘she’s a nice person.’
Atherton smiled privately at this concluding benediction. His boss might just as well have said, ‘You have my blessing to proceed.’ Bill had never had much facility in expressing emotions, and with Joanna was having painfully to learn a whole new language. Atherton, on the other hand,
had always had all the words, an easy, sparkling stream of them; now he was going to have to learn to put his money where his mouth was.
‘But nothing worth having was ever achieved without effort,’ he concluded aloud. Slider grunted agreement without questioning of what the comment was apropos.
When they reached the flat, Slider invited Atherton in for a drink, and finding that they were both hungry, rummaged through the kitchen and offered the old standby bread and cheese. Atherton looked at the bread and the cheese and quickly offered to make them both Welsh rarebit, which he did the proper, painstaking way, melting the cheese in a pan and adding mustard and Worcestershire sauce before pouring it over the toast and grilling it. While all this was going on and Slider sat on the edge of the kitchen table watching, they both sipped a handsome-looking Glenmorangie with a beer chaser, and talked about the case.
‘Now that Defreitas has made a complete Jackson Pollock of the evidence,’ Atherton said, ‘and Eddie’s turned out to have an alibi, I suppose it puts Meacher up as prime suspect. There’s this story about him chasing some other woman, a rich one. But if Jennifer was about to queer his pitch with some serious money, that’s a good enough motive to kill her, if he’s really the creep you think he is.’
‘But he’s got an alibi.’
‘Not much of one. The girl would obviously say anything she was told to, but a little judicious – or even judicial – pressure might change that. Effectively, he’s not accountable for most of the evening and all of the night.’
Slider shifted restlessly. ‘But most of the same objections apply to Meacher as suspect as to anyone else. We’re not just trying to find someone to nail this to, we’re trying to find out what really happened.’
‘Hey,’ Atherton said, wounded, ‘it’s me.’
Slider made a gesture of acknowledgement, and went on thinking aloud. ‘There’s the problem of the makeup. How would the murderer do the retouching out of doors and in the dark?’
Shallow Grave (Bill Slider Mystery) Page 25