Blood Sinister

by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles

  ‘Yes, it’s a miserable business,’ Slider said. He remembered his long talk with Piers, the shadow Prentiss, the B-side brother; conjured up the charm of his rare smile, the wry intelligence, the humour. Now it was all stopped, just like that, in an instant, in the twinkling of an eye. His corruptible must put on incorruption: but no-one had asked him if he was ready. His life, stolen from him, just like Phoebe Agnew’s – and for what? What was the connection?

  Heaveysides raised anxious eyes to Slider’s. ‘You’ve got something going on with Prentiss’s brother, haven’t you? Do you think the cases could be connected?’

  ‘I have a nasty suspicion that they almost certainly are,’ Slider said. ‘But the brother’s been cleared of our murder. It seems likely, on what you’ve told me, that whoever did this did our job as well. But I’m afraid we haven’t a clue yet who that might be.’

  ‘Ah, well, it goes like that sometimes,’ Heaveysides said wisely. ‘Would you like to talk to Babbington?’

  ‘Thanks, that would be helpful.’

  ‘I’ve got to get back to my own lads – but you’ll let me know if you get anything that’ll help me?’

  ‘Absolutely. I’m grateful to you for letting me in on this. There’s a lot wouldn’t.’

  ‘In my view, we’re all on the same team,’ Heaveysides said.

  ‘I wish everyone thought like that,’ said Slider.

  Marjorie Babbington was white, rigid, and red-eyed, but she wasn’t giving in.

  ‘I’m sorry to put you through it all over again,’ said Slider, ‘but I’d be grateful if you would tell me what happened. I’ve had it from Inspector Heaveysides, but I may hear something slightly different from you, or you may remember a detail you didn’t tell him.’

  She said, ‘I understand. I don’t mind how often I tell it, if it helps catch whoever did this awful thing. How could anyone hurt someone like Piers? Do you think’, she asked, meeting his eyes bravely, ‘it was the same person that killed Phoebe?’

  ‘I think it very likely.’

  ‘Well, I hope you get them,’ she said fiercely, ‘and I wish we hadn’t abolished hanging.’

  ‘So, tell me, when was the last time you saw Piers?’

  ‘Yesterday afternoon, when he was walking the dogs. He went past along the lane, and I waved to him from the kitchen window.’

  ‘What lane is this?’

  ‘The lane that runs behind our houses. You know I live a few doors down from Piers?’

  ‘I do now.’

  ‘Oh. Well, there’s a lane that runs along the back of the whole row. Just a narrow mud track, really, too narrow for a car, but it gives access to our backyards. Anyway, he went by about, oh, half past three or thereabouts, walking the dogs. He waved back to me quite cheerfully. And that was the last time I saw him – until—’ She couldn’t finish it.

  ‘All right,’ said Slider soothingly. ‘Tell me about this morning. When did you come to the house?’

  ‘It was about half past nine. I came along the lane and let myself in at the back door—’

  ‘Was it open or shut?’

  ‘Oh, it was locked. He used to leave it open in the old days, but we had a spate of burglaries a few years back and I made him get into the habit of locking the house when he went to the shop. But in any case, the shop’s closed on a Monday, so when I found the back door locked I knew he must be out. So I let myself in with the key.’

  ‘What keys do you have?’

  ‘Of Piers’s? Only the back door. I always come in that way.’

  ‘And what about the shop?’

  ‘I don’t have a shop key. Piers gives me the spare set if he wants me to look after it for him.’

  ‘All right, go on. You let yourself in. How did the house seem?’

  ‘Well, just as usual really. I didn’t notice anything out of place. Oh,’ she remembered, ‘except that the dogs seemed unusually hungry.’

  ‘They were in the kitchen?’

  ‘Yes, on their beanbag. They rushed to me and jumped up and down, just as they always do, but then they went to their bowls and barked like mad and pushed them with their noses, the way they do when they want to be fed. Naturally I assumed Piers had fed them before he went out, so I just gave them each a Bonio. It’s very wrong to overfeed dogs. Of course, now I think of it, they probably hadn’t been fed since last night, poor things, but how was I to know?’

  ‘You weren’t, of course. So what happened next?’

  ‘Well, I let them out to do their tiddles, and started my cleaning, as usual. Then Mr Hewitt came to the door and asked for Piers, and when I said he’d gone out, he said he’d left the lights on in the shop. I thanked him for telling me and said I’d go in and turn them off.’

  ‘How come you didn’t notice when you came past?’

  ‘There are no windows to the shop at the back. The back door lets onto a sort of lobby with coat hooks and fuse boxes and the cloakroom, so you wouldn’t see any light walking past at the back. Anyway, I got the spare set of keys—’

  ‘Where are they kept?’

  ‘In the bureau drawer in the drawing-room. I took them and went out the back way, to the back door of the shop, let myself in, and there was Piers lying behind the counter.’ She stopped and drew a shaky breath. ‘Of course, he couldn’t be seen from the front door, or Mr Hewitt would have raised the alarm.’

  ‘I’m sorry to put you through it, but how was he lying?’

  ‘On his front. His – his face was turned sideways a bit. It was – swollen – and—’ She stopped and put her face in her hands. ‘I could see he was dead,’ she said, muffled by her fingers.

  ‘How was he dressed?’

  She was a long time answering. At last she lowered her hands, in control again. ‘Fully dressed. In his cord trousers and tweed jacket,’ she said briskly.

  ‘Did he look as if he had struggled? Were his clothes disarranged? Was anything knocked over?’

  ‘No. The rug was rucked up a bit under him, but that was all. If anything had been knocked over, it must have been put straight again. And nothing seemed to be missing – except his keys, so they tell me.’ She stared unhappily at her hands. ‘I hate to think of him lying there all night like that, while the poor doggies waited and waited for him to come back.’

  ‘Why do you think he was there all night?’

  ‘Well, the police said – said he’d been dead for about twelve hours. And of course there was a light on in the shop last night.’

  ‘Ah, you didn’t mention that before,’ said Slider. ‘How come you saw that?’

  ‘Oh, I didn’t. It was Mr Hewitt. He said he’d taken his dog for a walk last thing last night – about half past ten – and he’d passed the shop on the way back and saw the light on then. Naturally he didn’t think anything about it – why should he? But when he came by this morning and saw it was still on, he thought he’d better tell Piers he’d forgotten it.’

  She looked enquiringly at Slider, who had lapsed into thought. Eventually he roused himself and said, ‘You didn’t notice anything in the house missing or disturbed?’

  ‘Not really,’ she said apologetically. ‘I might have if I’d been looking for it, but of course I wasn’t.’

  ‘What keys were on the key-ring that Piers kept in his pocket?’

  ‘The shop front and back and the house front and back.’

  ‘So whoever took them could get in and out of the house without leaving a trace.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose so – if the dogs would let them.’

  ‘Are the dogs fierce?’

  ‘Well, quite,’ she said. ‘If they don’t know you. I mean, if Piers is there, or I am, they wouldn’t hurt a fly, but if someone broke in – I know they’re small, but with two of them they could be a real nuisance to a burglar.’

  ‘And they were in the kitchen, but with the run of the house?’

  ‘Yes, they—’ Her eyes widened. ‘There, now, you were right, I have remembered something that was differe
nt. The kitchen door was closed – the one between the kitchen and the rest of the house. That was always left open, but this morning when I went in it was closed.’ She looked apologetic. ‘I noticed it and didn’t notice it, if you know what I mean. I mean, until you know something’s important, you sort of dismiss it from your mind, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes, I know exactly what you mean,’ Slider said. ‘One last thing, that photograph that went missing, the previous time we came to see Piers – did it ever turn up?’

  Her eyes widened. ‘No, it didn’t, and that was odd, because he thought I’d moved it, but I certainly hadn’t. I thought maybe it had fallen down behind something, but I looked when I was cleaning and didn’t find it. So where it went is a mystery.’

  When they had left her, Atherton said, ‘What was that about the photograph? Was it important?’

  ‘I’ve no idea,’ Slider said. ‘I’m just punting. Anything could be anything.’

  ‘You don’t know what’s important until you know what’s important,’ Atherton agreed. ‘So what do you think happened?’

  ‘I suppose the murderer called on him last night and persuaded him to go over to the shop for some reason. Knocked him down, strangled him, and then went back to the house for something, using the keys from his pocket to let himself in and lock everything up after him. And shoved the dogs in the kitchen and shut the door while he looked for whatever it was.’

  ‘Or maybe’, Atherton said, ‘he met Piers at the house, and shut the kitchen door before they went to the shop together. That way he could come back in the front without disturbing them.’

  ‘It’s possible,’ Slider said, ‘though he’d run more risk of being seen going in that way.’

  ‘But I wonder why he left the shop lights on?’

  ‘Oversight, probably. Or maybe he’d been careful not to touch anything, and didn’t want to leave prints on the light switches. He could have let himself out with the key without having to touch the door, you see.’

  ‘But then if he went to the house to rummage round he’d have had to have gloves, wouldn’t he?’

  ‘Well, we don’t know that he did rummage round,’ Slider said. ‘He might have taken the keys just to let himself out and lock the shop, and the kitchen door being closed was just a fluke and not related to anything. Which way’s the incident room, do you suppose?’

  ‘I’d bet that way. Want to thank Mr Heaveysides?’

  ‘That, and to see if they’ll let us have a rummage of our own through Piers’s papers. Though I doubt whether it will reveal anything. I wish I knew what was going on,’ he said sadly. ‘This maniac has killed two people now, and it would be nice to know if anyone else is in the firing line before he gets to them.’

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Probably the best laugher in the world

  There was the familiar blue-and-white barrier tape boxing off the cottage and antiques shop and the road and pavement in front of them, and a small crowd of the usual sort – shapeless women in C&A macs and headscarves, slovenly unemployed youths in trainers and scrub-headed ten-year-old truants astride mountain bikes of fabulous expense.

  As Slider and Atherton were admitted through the barrier and walked towards the front door, Slider was surprised to hear his name called with some urgency.

  ‘Mr Slider! Over here!’

  It was Peter Medmenham, gripping the tape and staring at him with the urgency of a pointer. He looked out of place against the grimy background in his neat charcoal grey overcoat and yellow wool muffler. His shiny little feet were set in the gutter of the mud-streaked road, and a coating of fine mist droplets made his blue-white hair look dingy grey.

  Slider went over to him. ‘How did you get here?’

  ‘The police telephoned Josh, and he called me right away, to let me know,’ he said. ‘I had to come.’ He hadn’t put on any make-up, and the cold had brought out the network of fine thread veins, red over the blue of his cheeks. He looked pinched and old. ‘I should have been with him,’ he said starkly. ‘He phoned me yesterday. He’s hardly seen anything of his new friend. I think he was lonely. But I wouldn’t go. Pride, you see. And now he’s—’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Slider said, and he really, really was.

  Medmenham shook the sympathy away. ‘My own fault. They’re saying it was a break-in. Is that right?’ His eyes appealed, but for what, Slider didn’t know. There was no comfort he could give this man one way or the other.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said.

  Medmenham swallowed, reaching for words. ‘I wonder – if you can ask for me. I can’t get anyone to listen. His things – photographs, for instance. Just something of his to keep. If I could go in, just for a moment—?’

  ‘I’m afraid that’s not possible. But all his things will be released to his brother eventually. Why don’t you ask him? I’m sure he’d let you have something.’

  Medmenham shook his head again, as if Slider had said something hopelessly naive. ‘It’s awful to be kept out like this. Like a stranger. I should have been with him. It wouldn’t have happened if I’d been there.’

  ‘I must go,’ Slider said. He turned away, and Medmenham’s voice, lifted a little, followed him like a sibylline pronouncement on the damp air.

  ‘He’d have left him soon, you know, the new one. Dropped him. It wouldn’t have lasted.’

  Slider glanced back from the door, and he was standing there at the barrier, as still as only an actor or a soldier can; small and upright, staring into the distance, the bright dab of pure colour at his throat marking him out from the surrounding browns, greys and sludges. He was as unlike as possible the rest of the crowd, the real natives of this place and this event. Some of them were looking at him, with curiosity and faint hostility, like sparrows just about to start pecking an escaped budgerigar.

  It was fortunate that Slider was still at the house when the call came through from Shepherd’s Bush that a Mr Henry Banks wanted to meet him in a pub in Sudbury, because it was only about twenty-five miles from there, straight through on the A131. If he had started off back to London he’d have been going in the opposite direction.

  There was Atherton to deal with, but one of the local boys offered to drop him at the railway station, and the trains from Chelmsford were frequent and fast. Atherton gave him a curious look as he left: it wasn’t often that Slider did anything Atherton didn’t know about. But Slider said it was a meeting with a snout of his – which was almost the truth – and a man’s snout was sacrosanct, so he couldn’t very well ask any more.

  It was a slow drive, with the afternoon pootling traffic clogging up the roads: elderly Cambridges and Metros driven by old men in hats who could only just see over the wheel; cheap hatchbacks with rusty bumpers and the back door secured with string, driven by red-faced men who looked as if they might well have a pig or a crate of chickens in the passenger seat. They all drove at forty-five miles an hour in the exact centre of the lane and never looked in their rear-view mirrors, so it was impossible to pass them.

  There was that melancholy feeling of all comfort ending that you only get towards dusk in the countryside in winter. The sky was pinkish along the horizon, the bare trees looked chilly, and here and there a lone rook flapped slowly home, straight as the crow flies. Loneliness breathed up from the brown furrows and the scattered, crouched houses. The oncoming dark seemed a menace to flee. You felt you had to get indoors as quickly as possible.

  He thought of his own childhood home, the dank cottage with its garden full of cabbages and brussels sprouts and the drain in the kitchen that smelled of tea leaves. Suddenly he was ten again, and coming home across the fields, his feet weighted with mud and his cold legs aching so he could hardly get along, and the night mist beginning to be exhaled from the black water in the field drains. But indoors, if he could only get there, would be lights, and the furry, comfortable warmth of paraffin heaters, and Mum in the kitchen, where a mum always ought to be, getting tea. Women and food: how they locked on
to your heart, taking it so young that if you had ever been properly loved and nurtured, you could never quite untangle them again. And did you ever, ever get over losing your mum? It seemed absurd after so long, and at his age, to be seized with such a yearning to go home; but she was gone, beyond reach, and a grown man wasn’t allowed to feel like this.

  The bricks and street lights of Sudbury came as a relief. It had been a pretty town, though like everywhere else now it had its rash of ugly little new houses creeping out over the outlying fields like psoriasis. It was years since he had been here, but he remembered his way about all right, as a pub man does, navigating from inn sign to inn sign. The Rose and Crown was one of those tiny beamed cottages, long and low with diamond-pane windows, sunk slightly below the pavement level, that look as if they’ve shrunk together with age, like little old women. He pushed open the oak door – probably five hundred years old, and how many unthinking hands had pushed it open in that time? – and stepped into the parlour. It had a red carpet and red velvet banquettes and beams everywhere, a game machine flashing its lights in a corner like someone humming to himself, and at one end a glorious log fire, just getting into its stride. There were two customers sitting on stools at the bar. One was talking to the landlord, who was obviously an old friend; the other was at the far end, near the fire, reading a newspaper.

  ‘Afternoon,’ said the landlord pleasantly. ‘What can I get you?’ His friend looked round as well, and half smiled; the reader didn’t look up from his paper.

  ‘Afternoon. A pint of Adnams, please,’ Slider said, and drifted, as though of no purpose, down the bar, to station himself between the other two customers, but closer to the newspaper man.

  The pint came. The landlord made a remark or two about the weather, looking at Slider keenly with copper’s eyes, as though assessing where he came from and what he was doing here, and then politely left him and went back to his friend. Slider turned his back on them casually to look at the fire, leaning his right elbow on the bar. The man with the paper looked up. The paper, Slider could see now, was a sporting one; the man was small, thin, and deeply lined in the face, with an all-weather complexion and hands like wooden clubs.