Dear Departed

by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Slider said firmly. ‘I have to go now, there’s a call on the other line.’ And he put the phone down. Now his head was occupied with unwelcome bits of knowledge like the worst sort of squatter. He didn’t want to be on the inside of Atherton’s love life, and it was a damn cheek of the girl to think he was going to be her go-between, especially as she was in bed with Atherton this very morning, and presumably they hadn’t only been discussing counterpoint or fingering techniques. It was one thing to think she must be a flighty little madam to bed someone on such short acquaintance and then chuck him out equally quickly, but quite another to be forced to wonder whether Atherton had been making a fool of himself and whether it might have clouded his judgement about Harkness. And, oh dear, oh dear, too old? Atherton, the boy wonder, the serial bird-puller, the Peter Pan of sexual frolic, who was forced to fight the totty off to get a moment’s peace – Atherton being knocked back because he was too old?

  He hadn’t got time to think about this, damnit! He shook his head violently, stood up, stretched until his muscles cracked, then sat down again and resumed his work.

  The day wasn’t over yet.

  ‘It’s a bit of a mess,’ Porson said, quite mildly, considering. Nicholls, ringing up to Slider from downstairs to say Porson had arrived, had reported the old boy seemed almost glad to be called in. ‘Sundays are hell when you’re on your own.’ Perhaps that accounted for the mildness.

  ‘Now we’ve got another two sets of doting parents breathing down our heels – and Harkness senior turns out to be a junior minister in the Arts Department, whatever it’s called these days, whose wife is pally with the PM’s wife. The last thing we need at this junction is political ramplications.’

  Did he mean complications, ramifications or implications, Slider wondered. In any case, he certainly didn’t want any of them. ‘No, sir,’ he said.

  ‘He’s busting everybody’s guts wanting to know what his son’s accused of and when he can move him to a private facility.’

  ‘It looks as though Jasper Stalybrass is going to recover,’ Slider offered his own small comfort.

  ‘Yes, that brings it down to attempted murder, or GBH, assault with a deadly, depending on how hard Stalybrass or his parents want to press it. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn his dad’s best friends with the Attorney General and plays golf with the Lord Chief Justice. But what about this other thing? This confession?’

  ‘We haven’t been able to interview him yet. He’s still under sedation and considered too unstable.’

  ‘Yes, and his father’s agitating to get a solicitor in there, which’ll shove another spanner in the spokes,’ Porson said gloomily. ‘If we ask him anything it’ll be “questioning while non compost mental”, and the case’ll collapse and we’ll be hung up to dry. What did you think of it – the confession?’ he asked abruptly.

  ‘It makes sense, and Harkness hasn’t got an alibi for the time in question, and he’s certainly been behaving in a disturbed manner since the death.’

  ‘But?’ Porson asked sharply.

  ‘It’s just a gut feeling, sir. It doesn’t feel right to me. But I have to admit I’ve nothing to base it on. On the other hand, we’ve no direct evidence against Harkness, apart from the confession.’

  Porson sighed. ‘Yes, and they won’t go on that alone, these days. Mind you, if the lad’s gone doo-lally, he’ll probably be locked up anyway and that’ll be that, though it won’t help our clear-up figures. Well, keep an open mind. See if we can find anything to back it up. The knife gone off to the lab?’

  ‘Yes, sir, and we’ve fast-tracked it. That should mean a result by tomorrow afternoon.’

  ‘Right. Meanwhile, what to tell the press? I suppose we’ll have to let them have the assault. It’s public knowledge anyway by now. But given it was a stabbing they’ll add two and two and make him the Park Killer and Daddy Harkness will never believe we didn’t tell them he was. Then the Shah will really hit the Spam. We’ll have top brass all over us and writs flying about like doodlebugs.’

  ‘I can’t see that we can help that, sir. Even if we don’t tell them anything, there’s bound to be speculation, given his relationship with the girl.’

  ‘Yes, and the next thing I’ll have Daddy Cornfeld round my neck as well. We’ll just have to cover our arses and hope for the best. So we’ll say Harkness is being questioned about the assault on Stalybrass, which they can’t argue about, and so far we have no reason to believe – no, we can’t say that, in case it goes the other way – no evidence that there is any connection with the Cornfeld murder.’

  ‘Do you want me to do it?’ Slider asked unwillingly.

  ‘No,’ Porson said, with a deeper sigh. ‘I’d better do it myself. Having an MP involved raises the stakes. No offence, Slider, but we don’t want them saying we sent the monkey when it should have been the organ grinder.’

  Now how, Slider thought, as he trudged back to his office, could he think I’d take offence at that?

  Slider got off the phone from the umpteenth trying conversation to find Hart hovering in the doorway.

  ‘They called from downstairs, guv. There’s a woman come in about the murder, something to do with Running Man. She was asking for you, but d’you want me to do it? I know you’re busy.’

  ‘No, I’ll go,’ said Slider. ‘I don’t suppose it’s important, but anything to get away from this desk for ten minutes.’

  ‘I bet you haven’t had any lunch,’ she said, eyeing him like a mother hen about to start clucking.

  ‘You can’t bet with me about that. I know the answer,’ he said, heading for the door.

  She was not so easily put off. ‘D’you want me to get you something? A roll or something?’

  He tried to ignore her and hurry on, but his stomach caught his foot by the scruff, so to speak, and he halted involuntarily. ‘On a Sunday?’ he said.

  ‘There’s that place under the railway arch the cabbies go to. That’s always open.’ She saw she had him by the hearts and minds, and added seductively, ‘I could get you a sausage sarnie or a bacon sarnie.’

  He practically salivated. ‘Well, it’s a thought. Do you mind?’

  ‘Course not. Whatjer fancy?’

  ‘Sausage, then.

  ‘Wiv tomato sauce?’

  He capitulated. ‘Of course. Two rounds.’ Might as well go for broke. ‘And make sure it’s butter, not marge.’

  ‘Yeah, I remember.’

  ‘Thanks, Hart.’

  She beamed as if he were doing her the favour, not vice versa.

  Downstairs in the front shop there was only one person waiting: a young West Indian woman, in her late twenties, he calculated, with a plump, pretty face, plaited hair and a figure that strained at every seam of her tight Lycra mini-skirted dress. With bosoms and buttocks like those, he thought, she’d take a long time to pass you in the street. Her legs were bare and her knobbly feet, thrust into high-heeled strappy sandals, evidently resented it and were trying to escape through the gaps. She wore hoop earrings, bangles, and a multitude of gold chains round her neck, and she clutched on her lap an enormous shoulder-bag (why did young women these days all go around with these near-haversacks for handbags? What the heck did they need to carry with them all the time?) He noted with interest that she was sweating, despite its being reasonably cool in there, and was extremely nervous. Her brow was furrowed, her hands massaged nervously at her bag strap, she chewed at her lower lip.

  When she saw Slider she did not wait for him to speak but got immediately to her feet, and said, Are you the man round here?’

  ‘I’m Detective Inspector Slider. I’m in charge of the investigation. What can I do for you?’

  ‘I got to talk to you,’ she said. ‘It’s important.’ She had a Shepherd’s Bush accent with nothing of the West Indies in it other than the husky timbre. Born and bred, he concluded.

  ‘What’s your name?’ he asked.

  ‘Lizzie Proctor,’ she said. Her eyes flitt
ed about anxiously. ‘Look, I can’t talk here. You got somewhere we can go?’

  Slider conducted her into the nearest interview room, and was interested to note that she looked about her as one to whom this was a new experience. ‘It’s a bit primitive, I’m afraid, but it’s private,’ he said. ‘Would you like to sit down, Miss Proctor?’

  She seemed pleased with the formality, and brushed her skirt under her as she sat down with a little fluttery movement of femininity.

  ‘Now, what’s it about?’

  She paused a moment, evidently on the brink of some leap, and then said, ‘It’s about me bruvver. Look, you’ve not got to let on it was me told you. He’d just about kill me if he knew I was here. But I begged him and begged him to come. I said to him, if Dad was alive he’d make you. I mean, he’s just making it worse, innee, making you all look for him? But he never done nuffing,’ she said, looking up urgently into Slider’s face. ‘He’s a good boy, and I swear my Bible oaf he never done nuffing.’

  ‘What’s your brother’s name?’ Slider asked, hoping for enlightenment.

  She hesitated. ‘Look, I’ll be straight wiv you. I mean, it don’t matter me telling you because you’ll find out anyway. He’s got a record. That’s partly why he won’t come in. He’s shit scared of the p’lice. But it’s only little stuff, and he’s going straight now. He’s tried so hard, he really has, and me and Mum’s so proud of him, and then this has to ’appen and spoil it all.’ Her eyes filled with tears.

  Slider tried again, patiently. ‘Just tell me what he’s done.’

  ‘That’s the ’ole fing, he’s never done nuffing!’ she cried, as if he were being wilfully stupid. ‘He just happened to be there, that’s all, just by chance, and he doesn’t know nuffing about it. He never even knew this woman, this Chattie Cornfeld. You got to believe me.’ ‘Your brother was in the park at the time of the murder?’ Slider said.‘That’s what I’ve been telling you,’ she said, wiping a tear from her eye with a forefinger. ‘You been putting it out on the news about wanting to talk to him, and that was bad enough, but at least it could have been anybody. But then you put out a picture of him last night and that did it. He’s gone into hiding now and he says he daren’t go back to work on Monday, and if he loses that job I just know he’ll turn bad. He thinks nobody trusts him.’

  Running Man, Slider thought. So that was what it was all about. ‘All right,’ he said soothingly, ‘just tell me from the beginning about – what’s his name?’

  ‘Dennis,’ she said automatically, without noticing she’d given it away. ‘You see, he was always a bit of a live wire, and when Dad died he sort of got into bad company at school, the way kids do, and he done a bit of shoplifting. We didn’t know at first, Mum and me, but I was a bit worried because he was out all hours, and he didn’t talk to me like he did before. I mean, he was a cheeky little devil, but him and me got on all right, you know what I mean? He told me things.’

  She seemed to want a reply at this point so he said, ‘Yes, I understand.’

  ‘But now he was never home, and when he came in he’d just rush past wivout saying anyfing and go straight to his room an’ shut the door. So I started to get worried. I mean, he was never a bad kid, but they dare each other and egg each other on, kids do. That’s all it was to him, just a dare. But he got caught and warned, I don’t know how many times, and the first we heard about it was when he was arrested proper, and that one went to court. Well, he only got a suspended, but that was enough. It broke me mum’s heart. She always fought the world of Denny. She told him, she said if Dad was alive he’d beat you black and blue for it. And Denny promised he’d never do it again.’

  ‘And did he?’

  ‘He never shoplifted – I don’t fink he did, anyway – but when he left school he got in wiv another lot and started smoking weed. Well, ’cause he was hanging about on the streets he got stopped and searched a few times by the – by policemen,’ she corrected politely, ‘and one time he had some weed on him and he got done for possession. When Mum found out about that one she burst into tears, and Denny was really frit then.He’d never seen Mum cry before. So then he said he really would turn over a new leaf if we’d help him. Well, me and Mum helped him get this job, and he really has been trying hard, only it’s not easy. His mates are always on at him. But I said, Den, you stick to it. You’re doin’ great, and never mind what them bastards say, excuse my French. And then this has to ’appen!’ She cried again, what seemed like tears of frustration, and fumbled in her bag for a tissue. ‘He’s been in such a state since you started asking on the telly for him, and I told him to come in and clear it up, but he wouldn’t. He said you coppers have got it in for him, and that you hate blacks, and that you’d fit him up for something. I said, don’t be daft, but he said you’d never believe him ’cause he was black an’ he’s got a record. And the longer he left it, the worse it was. And then that picture was on the telly last night, and now he finks everyone finks he’s a murderer!’

  ‘So what was he doing in the park?’ Slider asked, trying to keep a grip on the thread.

  ‘He was going to work, of course. He always goes frough the park, it’s the quickest way. And the only reason he was running was he didn’t wanner be late. I mean, he’s a good boy, and just because he’s running you make him out to be a murderer and ruin his life.’

  ‘We only ever wanted him to come forward so that we could eliminate him from our enquiries,’ Slider said soothingly.

  ‘Well, that’s what I told him, but he doesn’t trust coppers. But it’s all right now, in’t it? You do believe me?’

  Slider believed her. Everything about her was patently honest, and she was trying to do her best by her brother. It did not, of course, mean that the brother had not lied to her.

  ‘We’ll have to check into it, just as a matter of routine. If you’d like to write down for me your name, address and telephone number, the time Dennis left home that morning, and the name and address of Dennis’s employer, so that we can check with them what time he arrived that morning—’

  ‘If you go asking his boss stuff about him like that,’ she said bitterly, ‘he’ll lose his job and that’ll be that.’

  ‘I promise you we’ll make it very clear we’re just eliminating everyone who was in the park.’

  She only shook her head slowly, her face profoundly troubled. ‘Denny’ll never forgive me. He’ll find out I told you and he’ll fink I shopped him.’

  ‘I won’t say anything about your visit here.’ She was still unconvinced, and he didn’t want to threaten her, so he said, ‘You were right about one thing – the longer it went on the worse it looked for your brother. Now, if we can get this cleared up quickly everything can go back to normal. If you say he didn’t know Chattie Cornfeld—’

  ‘He didn’t. I swear to you. He told me so and I know when he’s lying and he wasn’t lying then. He doesn’t know any white birds.’

  ‘Right. So all we have to do is check with his employer what time he got in that morning, and we’re done.’ He pushed the pad and pen at her temptingly. ‘Sooner the better. Let’s get it over with, eh?’

  She sighed, reached for the pen, and began to write in an unpractised, loopy hand.

  ‘Where is your brother now?’ he asked.

  ‘He’s staying with a mate. He’s scared to come home.’

  ‘This friend he’s staying with, it isn’t Darren, is it, by any chance?’ Slider said casually.

  ‘No, it’s Baz, I fink. Baz King,’ she said, still writing. ‘That’s his best mate. I dunno where he lives, though. I fink it’s somewhere in Acton but I dunno the address.’

  ‘But he does know Darren? Darren Barnes?’

  ‘I dunno,’ she said. ‘I don’t fink so. I never heard him talk about him. Who is he?’ He showed her the photo of Darren. She looked carefully and shook her head. ‘No, I don’t know him. Why ju wanna know?’ Then her eyes widened. ‘He’s somfing to do wiv the murder, innee? That’s why you’re asking
did Denny know him. You still fink Denny’s in on it.’ Tears rose again to her eyes and her lips quivered with anger and self-pity. ‘You said you believed me!’

  ‘I do believe you,’ Slider said. ‘You must understand that we have to check everything and everyone, even those people we believe with all our hearts. It’s just our job.’

  The use of the word ‘hearts’ got to her, but she was not quite ready to give up her pique. ‘Denny’s a good boy. I wish I’d never come,’ she said, in hurt tones.

  ‘I’m very grateful to you that you did,’ Slider said. ‘The more quickly we can get these little things cleared up, the sooner we can get after the real villains.’

  She sniffed back her tears and seemed mollified. When she had finished writing, Slider asked her if she had a photograph of Dennis, and she produced one from a little folder in her bag. ‘Can I keep this, for the time being? I’ll let you have it back in a day or two.’

  He ushered her out with full old-fashioned gallantry. ‘Thank you again,’ he said at the door. ‘Mind the steps, now. Good afternoon.’

  He watched her descent to the street with amazement, hardly able to believe she could walk on those tiny spike heels. It was something like seeing a huge water-filled balloon balance on a golf tee. As he turned to go back in, Hart arrived at the foot of the steps with a paper bag in her hand, and watched the departing form with raised eyebrows.

  ‘Blimey,’ she said. ‘I bet she’d make a cracking tight-rope walker.’

  ‘Is that my sandwich?’ Slider said, practically snatching it from her. He was so hungry he could have eaten straight through the paper. ‘How much do I owe you?’

  ‘You can pay next time,’ she said airily.

  He gave her a stern look. That sort of thing had to be nipped in the bud. ‘How much do I owe you?’

  ‘Oh, well, you can’t blame me for trying,’ she said. ‘You’re not married yet.’ And she changed the subject quickly. ‘Who was that lady I saw you with just now? That was the one who came in, was it?’