Killing Time

by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles

  Slider nodded, looking from her to Atherton. ‘We decided from the start that Paloma had been taken by surprise. There was no sign of a struggle. But how could he have been taken by surprise – and from the front – if the door had been violently kicked in? But if he was sitting having a chat with the murderer, who suddenly sprang up and whacked him across the bridge of the nose, killing him instantly – it fits all right. Lafota was telling the truth, Paloma was already dead when he got there, and the scrambled eggs were breakfast, not supper.’

  ‘But who?’ Atherton said. ‘And why?’

  ‘That, as somebody once remarked, is the question.’ Slider rubbed his forehead. ‘I think we need to sleep on it. We’re missing something.’

  Atherton caught Hart’s eye and made a gesture towards the door with his head. She took the hint and stood up. ‘Well, if it’s all the same to you gents, I fink I’ll go and have a chat with my mate. While I’m here. Got to keep her sweet or she won’t let me in again. How did you get in, guv?’ she added with interest.

  ‘I’ve got a private route,’ Slider said, ‘but I’m keeping it to myself.’

  ‘It’s a secret passage,’ Atherton said. ‘Starts behind a concealed panel in the library and comes out in the crypt of the ruined chapel.’

  ‘Garn,’ said Hart, and departed.

  Atherton looked keenly at Slider. ‘What’s up, boss? Is it the case?’

  Slider hesitated, but it was habit to confide in Atherton. ‘Mostly that. But now I’ve got trouble with Irene as well. At least, I think I have.’ He told Atherton briefly about the phone call.

  ‘You are a plonker when it comes to women,’ Atherton said. ‘How could you get yourself into such a mess?’

  ‘Your own relationships with women are notably successful and well-managed, of course,’ Slider said with a touch of resentment.

  ‘I don’t have relationships with women, that’s the whole point. I flit like a butterfly from flower to flower. A little sip here, a little sip there, and—’

  ‘Has Sue been in to see you?’

  ‘Yes, she’s been in,’ Atherton said shortly.

  ‘Just once?’

  ‘Who’s counting?’ His tone was brittle. ‘I keep telling you, there’s nothing between Sue and me.’

  ‘Yes, you tell me that, but you don’t tell me why,’ said Slider. If he was having his tender parts probed, he was going to probe back some. ‘You and she were very hot, and then suddenly it all stopped. Why?’

  Atherton was on the brink of snapping ‘Is that any of your business?’ when he paused and reflected that it just about was, or at least it had the right to be, and said instead, ‘Look—’

  ‘Ha!’

  ‘What d’you mean, “ha!”?’

  ‘Prevarication alert. When a man starts by saying “look”, it’s a sign he’s wriggling. Why did you stop seeing Sue? Plain answer.’

  ‘Because it was getting heavy. She was getting too serious.’

  ‘She was?’

  ‘You know what women are like,’ Atherton said unconvincingly. ‘You go out a couple of times and they start wanting to leave stuff in your bathroom. Then they want to know what you’re doing every minute of the day. Before you know it, they’re talking about looking for a flat together.’

  Slider looked at him sadly. ‘You’re crazy about her.’

  ‘I just don’t want to get involved. Anyway, we’re supposed to be discussing your problems, if you don’t mind.’

  ‘At least mine are positive problems, not negative ones.’

  ‘Is that supposed to mean something, or was that a bit of your brain I just saw fall out of your ear?’

  ‘It means,’ Slider said, ‘that if you’re not “involved”, as you call it, you’re nothing. It’s like saying life is difficult, so I’d sooner not be born.’

  ‘Very profound.’

  ‘You can sneer all you like, but what else is there? Bonking a series of bimbos you don’t give a damn about? You might as well masturbate and save the money.’

  ‘I’m quite happy as I am, thank you,’ Atherton said with dignity.

  ‘You aren’t,’ said Slider. They eyed each other for a while in tense silence. ‘How are you, anyway?’ Slider said at last.

  ‘They’re going to try me on solid foods next week,’ Atherton said, not with unalloyed bliss.

  ‘That’s good, isn’t it?’

  ‘Theoretically.’

  ‘Are you in much pain?’

  ‘Oh, it comes and goes. No, it’s a lot better now.’

  ‘But?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Atherton said with evident difficulty, ‘if I’ll be coming back.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Slider. He sought careful words. ‘That would be – a waste.’

  ‘The thing is,’ Atherton went on, looking bleakly at the wall beyond Slider’s shoulder, ‘I don’t know what else I can do.’

  ‘But you’re intelligent. You’ve got A levels and everything,’ Slider said. ‘You’d easily get a job.’

  ‘At my age? Anyway, it’s the only thing I ever wanted to do, be a copper.’

  ‘Really?’ Slider said with some surprise. He had always thought Atherton became a policeman out of general indifference.

  Atherton smiled faintly. ‘My pose of languid insouciance is not meant to fool you, oh great detective. Since I was a kid reading ’tec novels, it’s all I ever wanted. It disappointed my father and broke my mother’s heart, but I always knew it was the one thing I could do well, and be happy at.’

  ‘So why – er—?’

  Atherton looked at him. ‘I’ve seen bits of me God never meant to be seen. I lie here every day and look at this.’ He gestured towards his wound. ‘And I think, “I never want to be in this situation again.” And next time it could be worse. I could be shot. I could get killed.’

  ‘Oh, come on—’ Slider began, but having screwed up his courage to say all this, Atherton wouldn’t be stopped.

  ‘It could happen. You know the chances. Seven officers killed in the last five years. God knows how many thousand wounded, some of them disabled or scarred for life. I don’t want to end up with a plastic nose. And the thing is, they’ll know. The villains. They’ll know I’m afraid, and that’ll make it all the more likely. I’d be endangering other people. I can’t go on, Bill. I’ve – lost my nerve.’

  Slider didn’t know what to say to comfort him. ‘Don’t think about it now,’ he said. ‘Think about it later.’

  ‘Thank you, Scarlett,’ Atherton said, managing a smile.

  ‘You’re still under the weather. Everything will seem different when you’re on your feet and out of here.’

  ‘How do you cope?’ Atherton asked, eyeing him.

  Slider said, ‘I don’t really think about it until it happens.’

  ‘You’ve had your share,’ Atherton observed.

  ‘Of course, it’s your first time. That’s always worse. And some coppers do take it harder than others. I suppose you’ve got more imagination, or something.’

  Atherton winced. ‘You make me sound like Patience Strong.’

  ‘My advice would be, don’t make any decisions on the basis of how you feel now. Get fit again, see how you feel then. Don’t rush it. Run yourself in gently with a shoplifter or two, just to get your hand in, then move on to an underage burglar—’

  ‘What’s your interest in all this, anyway?’ Atherton demanded.

  ‘I should miss you,’ Slider said.

  It was the sort of moment when men get gruff. Atherton said gruffly, ‘Well, you’ve got a new partner now. What’s she like?’

  ‘You’ve seen her. Slender waist, firm, pouting breasts, legs that go all the way up to her shoulders—’

  ‘You could be describing me,’ Atherton said, and the moment was past.

  A nurse put her head round the door. ‘I thought I heard voices. You shouldn’t be here, you know,’ she said to Slider. ‘How did you get past the desk without me seeing you?’

  He didn�
��t want to give away his secret route in case he needed it again. ‘I expect you were answering a call,’ he said.

  ‘I hope this is urgent, official business,’ she said sternly.

  ‘It was. I’ve finished now, though. I’ll be off,’ Slider said, obeying the insistently held-open door. ‘I’ll look in again tomorrow,’ he said to Atherton.

  ‘Don’t bother,’ Atherton said. ‘Send me Hart instead.’

  ‘You’d only burst your stitches,’ said Slider.

  Because the nurse was watching he had to go out past the desk and to the main lift, but he got out at the first floor and made his way back to the stone stairs. If he went out at the front he’d have to walk right round the hospital to get to his car and he was tired now. There was a smell of pallid food wafting up the staircase: the kitchens must be somewhere up this end. It was funny, he thought, how often the kitchen and body parts incinerator were close together. Mackay said it was a case of waste not, want not, and amplified the thought if given any encouragement – or even without it.

  Slider pushed open the rubber swing door and found the corridor past the incinerator room was in darkness. Holding the door open, he looked for the light switch on the wall just inside, and clicked it. Nothing happened. The bulb must have gone. He didn’t fancy groping his way down the passage in the pitch dark. But at the far end the metal door was slightly open – letting the rubber door close behind him to cut out the light, he could see two edges of the door outlined by the orange glow from the lamp-posts in the street. It was enough. It wasn’t as if he could get lost anywhere.

  The corridor was only thirty feet long, but five steps into it he suddenly got a very bad case of panic. The hair stood up on his scalp and he wanted to run. For an instant he stopped himself, manly-wise; and then he thought, yeah, what the hell, panic! And ran. At least, he flung the first running step forward, but that was all he had time for before the wall fell on him and knocked him down. He sprawled on the cold rubber floor, smelled a terrible smell of gas, felt someone looming over him; and a terrible, unmanning despair swept over him. This was it. He was going to die. And in his last moment, he thought of Atherton, so near but just too far away to help him.

  The looming shape was gone. He wasn’t dead. Someone ran past him. He dragged himself part way up, propped on one elbow, feeling sick. The outline of the metal door changed shape, there was a dark figure framed in it, looking out; looking back. A metallic scraping noise – whoever it was was forcing the door all the way out so that it stayed open. The figure ran back. Slider flinched; but it was Hart. He smelled her perfume on the gusted air before her.

  ‘Sir, are you all right? Guv?’

  ‘I’m all right. Get after him,’ Slider croaked.

  She was away again. He saw her darken the door briefly. He dragged himself into sitting position and leaned against the cold wall, glad of the little light, glad he was not in darkness. The nausea was passing, a numb, throbbing pain tuning in behind his head. He reached up shaky, flinching fingers and located the area of extreme tenderness around the lowest cervical vertebra, which woke to jangling when he touched it. The fact that he had flung himself forward had saved him from having his neck broken; amazing thing, animal instinct. He would never scoff at it again.

  Hart came running back, and was on her knees beside him, her hands all over him. ‘Nothing,’ she panted. ‘No sign of anyone anywhere. He’s had it away down the road by now. Are you all right, guv?’

  ‘I think so,’ he said.

  ‘What was it? Where did he get you?’

  ‘He hit me with something. Back of the neck. My jacket collar cushioned it.’

  ‘Who was it, guv? Did you see him?’

  ‘No, he was hiding in the dark. The light didn’t work. He must have taken the bulb out. Did you get a look at him?’

  ‘No. Just a sort of dark shape at the far door. I must have scared him off.’

  ‘Thank God you came.’ He winced. ‘Leave that alone. I’m all right, just leave me alone.’ She desisted. ‘Why did you come? What were you doing here?’

  ‘I followed you,’ she said. ‘You left your mobile behind.’

  ‘I did?’

  ‘I just popped into Atherton’s room to say goodbye, and he said you’d left your mobile. He told me about your back way in so I ran after you, down the back stairs. As I pushed open that door, all I saw was the dark shape as he scarpered out of that one.’

  ‘He was standing over me, ready to finish me off. You saved my life.’

  ‘Oh, that’s all right. Any time,’ she said, sounding embarrassed. ‘Who was it, though? Someone to do with the case?’

  ‘Unless it was a homicidal hospital porter, I should think that’s a fair bet.’

  ‘Sorry, guv. I’m a bit rattled.’

  ‘How d’you think I feel? Give me a hand up, will you?’ He got to his feet, leaned against the wall, and had an experimental moan. It felt good, so he repeated it. ‘I’m too old for this sort of thing,’ he said. Maybe he’d join Atherton in retirement. They could go shares in a chicken farm.

  ‘Put your arm over my shoulder and I’ll support you,’ Hart said, slipping her lithe body into the operative position. ‘Let me take your weight.’

  ‘It’s all right, I can walk,’ he said.

  ‘No, come on, guv. No sense in taking chances. I’ll help you to a chair and then I’ll go and find a nurse or someone.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘To have a look at your head. You’ll need an X-ray or something.’

  ‘Oh no you don’t. I’m not getting caught up with all that again. I’ve done my hospital stay for this year.’

  ‘But, guv—’

  ‘He didn’t hit me on the head, and nothing’s broken. Just a bit bruised.’ He tried an experimental rotation of the head and it hurt, but not by that much. ‘I’m going home.’

  ‘Suppose he’s still out there?’

  ‘You said he’d gone.’

  ‘I could be wrong.’

  ‘You can walk me to my car, if you’re worried. But he won’t attack again tonight.’

  ‘How can you be so sure?’ she said indignantly. ‘If he really wants to kill you—’

  ‘You don’t know it’s a man,’ he said, to sidetrack her. ‘It could be my wife taking vengeance.’

  ‘Then she’d attack me, wouldn’t she, not you?’ Hart said with a cheeky grin.

  He was glad to have distracted her, but he didn’t want her continuing in this delusion. ‘You take too much upon yourself,’ Slider said grimly. ‘Walk with me to my car, and then I’ll drive you to yours, just in case. And from now on, we both avoid dark alleys. Will you stop flapping, WDC Hart! If he’d wanted to take on two of us, he wouldn’t have run off when you came on the scene, would he?’

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  State of Affairs

  ‘All the same,’ Joanna said, easing arnica into the spot, ‘she had a point.’

  ‘Atherton reckons she’s got several,’ Slider said. ‘Ouch.’

  ‘That’ll teach you not to be facetious. What in the name of Jupiter did he hit you with?’

  ‘It felt like a smallish building,’ Slider said. ‘But I wasn’t knocked out, just groggy. And nothing’s broken. It’s just a bruise. I don’t want to spend any more time hanging around a hospital if I can help it. I’ve got things to do.’

  Joanna came round the front of him and sat down, knees touching his knees, face inches from his. She looked pale and tired and worried, and he suddenly had a very glad and lifting awareness of how much he loved her, which was reassuring in this world of uncertainties. ‘Suppose he tries it again, whoever he is?’

  ‘Well, being in hospital wouldn’t help me, would it? I proved how easy it is to sneak in.’

  ‘I was voicing a different worry that time,’ she said. ‘I’d moved on from (a) you might have delayed concussion to (b) there’s a murderer prancing about trying to invalidate your ticket.’ Her eyes were anxious. ‘I don’t want to lose you,
Bill.’

  She laid a hand on his knee and he placed his over it. This would be a good time, he thought, to give her something else to worry about. A nice go of stomach ache to take her mind off toothache. ‘Irene knows about us,’ he said.

  It worked. ‘What? You don’t mean you told her?’

  ‘It sort of came out.’

  ‘Wait a minute, wait a minute, let’s get this straight. When you say you told her about us, what exactly did you tell her?’ Her eyes widened so far her eyebrows made her scalp shift backwards. ‘You told her everything?’ He nodded mutely. ‘Oh, bloody Nora, now what have you done?’

  ‘Bloody Nora?’ he said, amused. ‘You sound like a policeman.’

  ‘Laugh while you can,’ she said grimly. ‘Let me guess how pleased she was to find out the true state of affairs, if you’ll pardon the pun.’

  ‘She told me to get a lawyer,’ Slider admitted. ‘Her parting words before she slammed the phone down.’

  Joanna jumped to her feet and paced about. ‘Phone! It was her on the phone, putting it down when I answered! Of course, why didn’t I guess?’

  ‘How do women do that?’ he marvelled. ‘Yes, she was the phantom phone caller. She’d been trying to get hold of me – to discuss our getting together again, I imagine – and when she kept getting a woman’s voice, she rang me at the office.’

  ‘I don’t know why you’re being so flippant about it,’ Joanna said crossly.

  ‘It’s less antisocial than crying,’ he said, ‘which is what I feel like doing.’

  She sat down again abruptly. ‘I’m sorry. I know you care about her – about them. But really, Bill, why on earth did you – I mean, what good did you think it could do her to know?’

  ‘I just couldn’t bear to hear her blaming herself for everything. Anyway, she’d have had to know sooner or later. It would have come out.’

  ‘I don’t see why.’

  ‘Because whatever you think now, you and she are bound to meet from time to time in the future, and things slip out. You can’t keep a guilty secret for ever. And the later she found out, the worse it would be.’