Body Line

by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles

  Recent Titles by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles from Severn House

  THE COLONEL’S DAUGHTER

  A CORNISH AFFAIR

  DANGEROUS LOVE

  DIVIDED LOVE

  EVEN CHANCE

  HARTE’S DESIRE

  THE HORSEMASTERS

  JULIA

  LAST RUN

  THE LONGEST DANCE

  NOBODY’S FOOL

  ON WINGS OF LOVE

  PLAY FOR LOVE

  A RAINBOW SUMMER

  REAL LIFE ( Short Stories )

  The Bill Slider Mysteries

  GAME OVER

  FELL PURPOSE

  BODY LINE

  This first world edition published 2010

  in Great Britain and in 2011 in the USA by

  SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD of

  9–15 High Street, Sutton, Surrey, England, SM1 1DF.

  Copyright © 2010 by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles.

  All rights reserved.

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

  Harrod-Eagles, Cynthia.

  Body line. – (A Bill Slider mystery)

  1. Slider, Bill (Fictitious character)–Fiction.

  2. Murder–Investigation–Fiction. 3. Police–England–

  London–Fiction. 4. Detective and mystery stories.

  I. Title II. Series

  823.9’14-dc22

  ISBN-13: 978-0-7278-6957-9 (cased)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-84751-301-4 (trade paper)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-7801-0002-9 (e-book)

  Except where actual historical events and characters are being

  described for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this

  publication are fictitious and any resemblance to living persons

  is purely coincidental.

  This ebook produced by

  Palimpsest Book Production Limited,

  Falkirk, Stirlingshire, Scotland.

  For Ali and Giles, with love.

  ONE

  The Wrath of Grapes

  ‘You look terrible,’ Slider said as Atherton slid into the car.

  ‘I feel terrible. I’d have to be dead three weeks to feel better than this,’ Atherton said. His voice gave him away – he sounded as if he’d been smoking forty a day for a week. ‘You, on the other hand . . .’ he added resentfully.

  ‘You shouldn’t mix your drinks,’ Slider said mildly.

  ‘I’m sorry, but I can’t sit in a jazz club and sip wine. It isn’t hip.’

  ‘If you were any more hip you wouldn’t be able to see over your pelvis.’

  With Emily away in Ireland covering the elections, and Joanna doing a concert in Harrogate, Slider and Atherton had had an all-too-rare-lately boys’ night out. They had gone to Ronnie Scott’s for a Charlie Parker evening: Gilad Atzmon on sax, with a septet backing. Later on some of the Central boys coming off duty had arrived and the session had turned into a long one, moving from Ronnie’s to the flat of one of them nearby.

  ‘It was a good evening, though,’ Slider said.

  Atherton agreed. ‘I can’t remember when I last heard live jazz.’

  ‘When I worked Central, I often used to slip into Ronnie’s at the end of a shift. Heard all the greats back then – met quite a few of them, too. The atmosphere’s not the same, though, now they’ve banned smoking.’

  ‘True. Without the fog you can actually see the performers across the room.’

  ‘Yes, but . . .’ Slider let it hang.

  ‘I know,’ said Atherton. ‘It’s weird. I hated smoky pubs and bars, but without smoke . . . It’s like waking up with someone you picked up when you were really, really drunk.’

  ‘It’s a long time since I did that,’ said Slider.

  ‘At least you went home to a bed and a missus. The kits had been shut in on their own all day, so when I got home they wanted a vigorous workout. They were wall-of-deathing round the house until dawn. Once every circuit they’d land heavily on my stomach and bawl, “Get up and play!”’

  Atherton had inherited two Siamese, Shredni Vashtar and Tiglath Pileser, from his previous relationship. They had originally been intended to cement it – ha ha. Fortunately, Emily loved cats; and even more fortunately she was a freelance journalist and worked from home a lot. The kits liked company.

  ‘Well, you smell nice, anyway,’ Slider said, catching a breath of Atherton’s expensively subtle aftershave. ‘Maybe too nice for police work. A blast of Old Corpsebuster can make a big difference to that all-important first impression.’

  ‘Oh, blimey, it’s not a stinker is it?’ Atherton said. They were on their way to a murder shout.

  ‘I don’t know anything about it, only the address. Three Hofland Crescent.’

  ‘Where’s that? It doesn’t ring a bell.’

  ‘Back of Sinclair Road. I know where it is, but I don’t think I’ve ever been there.’

  ‘So it could be anything. Could be something that’s been down a cellar for a week,’ Atherton said. ‘And I haven’t had any breakfast yet.’

  ‘Maybe just as well.’

  Shepherd’s Bush was not beautiful, but it had something to be said for it on a bright, breezy March morning. Clouds were running like tumbleweed across a sky of intense, saturated, heraldic azure. The tall, bare planes on the Green swayed solemnly like folkies singing Kumbayah. All around, the residents – young, old and middling – were sleeping, getting up, planning their day, thinking about work, school, sex, shopping, footie. Some were perhaps dying. One was dead in what the police called suspicious circumstances, and that, fortunately, was unusual. Homicide, even in the most crowded capital in Europe, was not the great eraser.

  The Monday morning traffic was squeezing down the side of the Green to the West Cross roundabout, and piling lemming-like beyond it into Holland Park Avenue. The right turn lane at the roundabout was clear except for a pair of ditherers. ‘Tourists!’ Slider said, gave them a couple of bloops and swung round into Holland Road. A moment later Atherton roused himself from his torpor to say, ‘Here’s Sinclair Road. So where’s this crescent?’

  It was misnamed – not a crescent at all, but a little snip of a straight road leading off Masbro Road at an angle. They had to leave the car in the only space left in Masbro Road and walk the rest. It was bitterly cold, despite the sunshine. The icy wind was coming down direct from the north, which accounted for the searing clarity of the sky, but it meant there was nothing between the Arctic floes and Slider’s skin except some wholly inadequate clothing.

  Seduced by the sun, Atherton hadn’t worn an overcoat either. He shivered beside Slider like a fastidious cat. PCs Renker and Gostyn, on duty at the barrier closing off the crescent, were bundled into multiple layers, and stood massively impervious to the wind-chill factor – as weather forecasters so blithely called it these days. They smirked a little as they moved the barrier to let them through. Beyond it, there were unit cars and the forensic waggon blocking the road, and other uniforms keeping the curious residents and the press back from the blue-and-white tape which made a clear space in front of the house.

  The sight of the house made Slider forget the cold for a moment. While the other side of the street consisted of a perfectly standard row of 1840s artisan cottages, their destination was one of a terrace of four Regency villas, harmonious in proportion, exquisite in detail, white-stuccoed, with the original fanlighted doors, and a little wrought-iron balcony at each first-floor window. ‘It’s a gem,’ he said, pausing in admiration.

  ‘Unexpected,’ said Atherton, who had had to start noticing architecture since he had been working with Slider.

  ‘They’re earlier than anything else around here,’ Slider said. ‘They must have been
here first – when Shepherd’s Bush was still a country village. They’d have had a view over the fields in those days.’

  ‘Must be worth a fortune. I had a look at a cottage like one of those,’ Atherton said, jerking his hand over his shoulder, ‘for Emily and me, but they were going for nearly seven hundred thou, and they’re just two-up, two-down.’

  ‘I think we can surmise that our victim is a man of means,’ Slider concluded.

  ‘Well, thank God for that. Maybe we won’t need the industrial strength cologne after all.’

  Detective Constable Kathleen ‘Norma’ Swilley, returned at last from maternity leave, was co-ordinating the troops on the scene. She had arrived back just in time to replace Hart, who had passed her sergeant’s exam and secured a posting to Fulham – a good promotion, though she went with many a wistful backward look. ‘You’re fam’ly,’ she had informed Slider’s firm tearfully at the leaving do, and had insisted on kissing every member of it full on the mouth – even McLaren, which was quite a feat. She’d had to compete with a vegetable samosa. McLaren never saw the point in wasting his lips on anything other than eating, which was perhaps why he hadn’t had a date since the Thatcher administration.

  Swilley – whose sobriquet, bestowed for her considerable machismo as a policeman, seemed rather inappropriate now she was a mother – was sensibly wearing a trouser suit over a roll-neck sweater, and a big, thick overcoat: cream wool, wrap-around and belted, Diana Rigg style. She looked warm and delicious. Well, Slider thought she looked warm, and Atherton, slightly wistfully, thought she looked delicious. Swilley had been his one notable failure in his pre-Emily career as a hound.

  Connolly, the newest member of Slider’s team, was talking to the next-door neighbours at Number 5, a well-dressed elderly couple, so tiny and immaculate they could have earned spare cash standing around on wedding cakes. They huddled in their doorway as though sheltering from a storm.

  ‘Deceased’s name is David Rogers, guv,’ Swilley reported. ‘He’s a doctor, according to the neighbours. That’s Mr and Mrs Firman.’ She gestured discreetly towards the elderly couple. ‘Lives alone – divorced or maybe single, they’re not sure – but has girlfriends round. Neighbours in Number 1 and 7 are young couples, but they’re out at work. No one at home in Number 7, and all there is in Number 1 is the nanny. Fathom’s in there having a go at her, but I don’t think he’ll get much change out of her. She doesn’t speak much English.’

  ‘Who’s inside?’ said Slider.

  ‘Forensics and the photographers. Doc Cameron’s not arrived yet. The local doctor pronounced, then had it away on his toes. He looked nearly green. Probably never seen a gunshot wound before.’

  ‘They are reassuringly rare,’ Slider said.

  ‘Well, it wasn’t pretty,’ said Swilley, who had seen her share of nasty sights. ‘Shot in the head.’

  ‘Suicide?’ Atherton queried. If so, they could get out of this icy wind double quick and back to the nice warm station.

  ‘Not unless he was a contortionist. Also—’

  Connolly joined them at that moment and said, ‘Are we going in, so?’

  Slider eyed her. ‘What’s this “we”?’

  ‘I’ve never seen a gunshot wound. Wouldn’t it be grand experience for me?’ she said innocently. ‘I’ve got everything we’re going to get outta the owl ones. Not that they know much. Didn’t hear the shot – deaf as Uncle’s donkey. They didn’t know there was anything going on at all until the girl dropped in.’

  ‘The girl?’

  ‘The girl outta Rogers’s house.’

  ‘There was a witness?’Atherton said. ‘Nice of you to mention it.’

  ‘I was just about to,’ Swilley said, ‘when I was interrupted.’

  ‘Where is she?’ Slider asked.

  ‘At the hospital,’ Connolly answered. ‘She jumped out the window or fell offa the balcony – they don’t know which. Landed in that bush outside their front window.’ It was a large, clipped bay, which had been flame shaped, but was now hit-by-a-heavy-body shaped. ‘She literally dropped in.’ Connolly grinned. ‘Frit the life outta them, banging on the window. She was in bits, sobbing with fright and babbling about your man being dead. So the owl ones took her in, made some tea—’

  ‘Ah, yes, tea. I’m glad they got their priorities right,’ Atherton said.

  ‘—and phoned for the peelers and the ambulance. Well, they didn’t have a key, and the girl was in a dressing gown so she hadn’t one either, so there wasn’t much else they could do. Anyway, the ambulance got here first and took her to Charing Cross.’

  ‘Was she conscious?’

  ‘Oh yeah. I don’t think she was bad hurt, from what they said. But she was in rag order from the shock, you know?’

  ‘We’ll have to interview her ASAP,’ Slider said. ‘She could be a suspect or an accomplice. You’d better ring the factory, get them to send someone to sit with her,’ he said to Atherton. ‘She shouldn’t be left alone. I might as well have a quick look at the scene now I’m here. There’s Freddie arriving, if I’m not much mistaken,’ he added, seeing a grey Jaguar XJ6 pull up beyond the barrier.

  It was indeed Freddie Cameron, the forensic pathologist, well bundled-up in a camel cashmere overcoat and navy scarf, his face looking lean and brown from his ‘summer’ holiday in California. He never went away in June, July or August because that’s when his garden was at its best. He had an – to Slider – incomprehensible passion for dahlias.

  ‘You’d better go back to the Firmans,’ Slider said, breaking Connolly’s heart. ‘Since you’ve got a relationship with them. Get their statement down while it’s still fresh in their minds. Anything they saw or heard, however trivial. Everything the girl said. And find out everything they know about the victim – where does he work, what are his interests, who does he see, is he in financial or woman trouble?’

  ‘Righty-oh, sir,’ Connolly said glumly.

  ‘You’ll see all you’ll want to see in the photographs,’ Slider reassured her. ‘It won’t be pretty.’

  ‘I need to see it for myself, but,’ Connolly grumbled. ‘How’ll I learn?’

  Slider turned away. ‘Freddie! Good holiday? You’re looking brown.’

  ‘My dear boy, this is rust! They’re having freak rainstorms over there. It was just like home.’

  ‘Not beach weather, then?’

  ‘I went whale watching, and Martha read seven books.’ Cameron paused a moment to consider the memory. ‘Not all at once, you understand. Sequentially.’

  While Cameron went in, Slider had a word with PC Dave Bright, who had been the first officer on the scene, and was now keeping the log at the door. He was the citizen’s dream copper, big and burly, unflappably good-tempered, but with a core of steel that made villains think twice about lipping him.

  ‘Had to break the door in,’ he told Slider, with a gesture towards the splintered frame. ‘The neighbours didn’t have a spare key. Said they weren’t that friendly with the man.’

  ‘It hadn’t been tampered with already?’

  ‘No, sir. Looked perfectly all right. But it was only on the Yale – not deadlocked.’

  ‘So the killer didn’t break in,’ Slider said.

  ‘No, sir. I did a quick check before I called it in, and there was no sign of a break-in. All the doors and windows at the back were locked. Upstairs windows were locked except the French windows of the main bedroom, but that was where the young lady went out, apparently.’

  ‘All locked up, even though he was at home. A careful citizen.’

  ‘Yes, sir. So maybe he let chummy in, and chummy let himself out the same way.’

  ‘What time was this?’

  ‘Working it back, sir, it must have been about half past six or thereabouts. The 999 call came in at a quarter to seven, and I got here just after seven.’

  ‘On your own?’ Atherton said. ‘To a firearms shout?’

  ‘There wasn’t any mention of shooting,’ Bright said. ‘Whether
it was the young lady or the old people who weren’t clear, I don’t know. All I was told was that there was a suspicion of foul play and no one had a key. As it was, the victim was there alone and anyone else was long gone. So it worked out all right,’ he said with a shrug.

  ‘Six thirty in the morning,’ Atherton said to Slider as they clothed up. ‘And on a weekday. Most people would be busy getting dressed or in the shower. Except for the high-flyers at numbers one and four, who’d have left for work at six.’

  ‘You’re supposing they’re high-flyers.’

  ‘Must be. Do you know what the mortgage payments would be on a house like this?’

  ‘It was a good time to choose,’ Slider said. ‘No one passing by to see anyone arriving or leaving.’

  ‘Even if anyone saw, they wouldn’t notice. Who notices someone coming out of a house, unless they’re acting suspiciously?’

  ‘Or covered in blood,’ Slider said. But he wasn’t hopeful. There wasn’t so much as a drip on the doorstep or the least smear on the door frame. Besides, shooting was not the murder method of choice for crimes of passion; which, together with the lack of a break-in, made it look like something more deliberate – and the deliberate didn’t dabble in their victim’s fluid emissions. Still, he checked himself, there was no sense in ruling things out beforehand. As he always told his firm, facts first, theories afterwards.

  Deceased was in the doorway between the hall and the sitting-room on the right, lying face down, which was probably just as well because he had been shot in the back of the head. He looked to be about five ten, and was dressed in dark trousers, white shirt, shoes and socks.

  ‘So he wasn’t woken by someone ringing the bell,’ Slider said. ‘He was up and dressed already.’

  ‘Nice shoes,’ said Atherton. ‘Italian. See the feather stamped on the sole? That’s Amedeo Testoni. Knock you back twelve hundred a pair. I like a man who spends on his footwear.’

  ‘As against which he’s wearing a gold ring, and has diamond cufflinks,’ said Slider, who had a thing about men wearing jewellery. ‘I don’t think you could have been friends.’

  Not much else could be told about the victim, except that what could be seen of his hair was thick and dark and shiny. There was a messy tangle of blood and shattered bone which marked the entry wound, blood pooling under the head, and an unspeakable porridge of brain, blood and tissue on the carpet ahead of him, in the direction the bullet had taken. Slider averted his eyes for a moment while he swallowed and took a settling deep breath.