‘I don’t know. The only connection I can come up with is the Glyndebourne one.’
‘Religious fanaticism, you mean?’
‘There is something very biblical about the throat-cutting. The one strong cut from behind – like a sacrifice at an altar. And a religious fanatic would be cold-blooded enough, or at least single-minded enough, to do it first time like that.’
‘Then why Miss Giles?’
‘Because I’d been talking to her, and she knew something that might be dangerous to him.’
‘Is Mills religious?’
‘Not that I know of,’ Slider said. ‘But of course he could be. I haven’t seen him for years. And they say at Epsom he was a bit of a loner. I thought I knew him, but how much do you ever know people?’ They were both silent for a while. ‘It seems to me that Mrs Reynolds’s evidence is the real hair in the custard,’ Slider sighed at last.
‘The what?’
‘The thumb in the gravy – the unpleasant detail that can’t be ignored. It was such a definite identification. Without that, we wouldn’t be looking at Mills at all.’
‘But as you say, you can’t ignore it. And what about the girl who identified him going to his aunt’s house?’
Slider tapped his notes. ‘She didn’t identify him. She only says he looked quite like the photofit.’
‘A distinction without a difference. Anyway, nobody ever really looks like a photofit unless they’ve got a bolt through their neck,’ Atherton grumbled. He looked at Slider. ‘What is it?’
Slider was staring hard at the empty air, evidently in labour. Then he rummaged through the papers and brought out Mrs Reynolds’s statement and a copy of the photofit. He read the former, and then tapped the latter with a forefinger. ‘Look, look at this. She’s put the mole on the wrong side.’
‘You’ll have to do better than that,’ Atherton said. ‘Mills has got more moles than M.I.5.’
‘This one,’ Slider pointed to the large mole on the curve of the cheek, half an inch below and to the side of the nostril. ‘His most distinguishing one. She’s put it on his left cheek; but it’s on his right.’
‘Are you sure?’ Atherton frowned, trying to visualise. ‘No, it’s on his left, surely.’
‘Trust me. I know Mills’s face very well.’
‘Let’s see her statement.’ Atherton read it through. ‘She says left cheek. Well, if you’re right then she’s wrong. So what?’
‘So what? What d’you mean, so what?’
‘She just made a mistake. Left, right, what does it matter? The rest of the description fits, and he’s got a mole. Who cares which side?’
Slider shook his head slightly, thinking rapidly. ‘Damn it, I can’t remember. I think it was on the left, but I’m not sure.’
‘You just said right,’ Atherton complained, but Slider wasn’t hearing him, rummaging through the photographs.
‘The one thing we haven’t got a photograph of! I’ll have to go and check.’
‘Check what?’
‘The lift. No, wait, maybe you remember.’ He focused belatedly on Atherton. ‘The lift next to the men’s room where Greatrex was killed – the lift where Mrs Reynolds says she saw the man – do you remember it?’
‘What’s to remember? A lift is a lift.’
‘Visualise it! Which side was the control panel? The buttons? On the outside, I mean – out in the corridor.’
‘On the left.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes.’ Atherton, good subordinate, didn’t ask again what did it matter. He waited. Slider went on thinking.
‘And Auntie Betty’s dead, damn it,’ he said at last. ‘The one person—’ He hit his palm softly with his fist. ‘Maybe that’s why! God, I hope so! That poor woman.’
‘Guv, can I know what it is?’
Slider looked at him for a moment. ‘Not yet. I’m so far out on the branch on this, it won’t take the weight of two. You’ll have to trust me for a bit.’
‘I trust you,’ Atherton said with delicate emphasis. ‘Can I do anything to help?’
Slider thought for a moment. ‘Not yet. Just cover for me – I’m going to stay out of reach of the office for a bit. I’ll ring you the moment I’ve got something to work on.’
‘All right.’ Slider was already on his feet. ‘Keep your mobile with you, then.’
‘Yes.’ A brief smile, like sunshine between fast-moving clouds. ‘Thanks.’
First things first. Clear as you go. He went in search of Mrs Reynolds, who lived in one of those high-rise flats in Bollo Bridge Road. A complex community of streets and little houses had been erased to create the windy veldt on which the towers were erected, which accommodated slightly fewer people than had lived in the same space before; but, by golly, the ones on the top floor had a terrific view.
The door was opened by a tiny, wizened man whose trousers had obviously been bought to last before age had shrunk him. He wore them now hauled up so high by his braces that the waistband came under his armpits. He also wore a white shirt, buttoned up but without a collar or tie, tartan bedroom slippers and a tweed cap. The saddest looking roll-up Slider had ever seen was stuck magically to his lower lip, and he breathed so badly and his nose was so blue that Slider feared the slightest extra exertion would see him off. Perhaps he ought to tell him to answer by blinking his eyes – one blink for yes, two for no.
But Mr Reynolds Mark Three seemed quite cheered by the visit and impressed by Slider’s official status. He actually took the ID from him and caressed it with an orange thumb before returning it. ‘Dolly’s in the front room, having a lie-down,’ he wheezed. ‘She’s not too clever s’morning. Jwanna come in?’
There were few things Slider wanted less, but in the line of duty he had sometimes to risk life and limb. There was no air inside the little flat, not a cubic centimetre: it had all been displaced by cigarette smoke. In the ‘front room’ an electric fire was on, heating up the smoke to rival the atmosphere of Los Angeles on a summer afternoon. The television was on, tuned to a breakfast show on which people with the air of having been up all night and knowing their mental agility to be impaired by the experience sat on a hideous sofa and desperately tried to keep talking until the adverts came on. On an equally hideous sofa in real life, Mrs Reynolds reclined, her sparse hair in small, tight curlers. She was covered from the waist down by a tea-stained ‘honeycomb’ blanket evidently stolen from a hospital, with an ashtray in her lap, a cigarette in her fingers, and a depressed-looking dachshund on her feet.
‘Oh my good Gawd!’ she said as Slider came in, and clapped her hand to her bosom. ‘You arf give me a fright – I thought it was the council!’
‘Not allowed to keep dogs,’ whistled her husband sadly. ‘She’s always afraid they’ll find out. I told her—’
‘He says they don’t care slongs we pay the rent,’ she took over for him. ‘But I told him – I’ve told you,’ she swivelled her head to her husband, ‘they’d dearly like us out of here, and put darkies in. They want to make it all darkies, this ’ole estate.’
‘No they don’t. Thass cobblers.’
‘The social lady said.’
‘She never. She said they’d move us if we ast to, on account o’ the darkies.’
‘It’s the same thing.’
Slider knew a single-track line when he saw one. ‘Mrs Reynolds, there’s something I’d like to ask you,’ he said. Before my breath runs out, he added silently.
‘Course there is, dear. I didn’t think you come ’ere for the pleasure o’ my company,’ she said archly. ‘Not but what—’
‘Concerning that night at the BBC Television Centre. I want you to think back to the moment when you saw the man at the lift.’
‘Yes, dear.’
‘You came through the swing doors, he was there by the lift, and you said in your statement you saw him press the button to call the lift.’
‘Thass right.’
‘Picture it in your mind. The lift buttons
are on the left side as you face the lift. The man puts his hand out and presses the buttons—’
Her face was screwed up in the smoke as obediently she visualised the scene. ‘Yeah, I got it.’
‘Which hand is he using?’
‘His left,’ she said promptly.
‘So he’s holding the bag in his right hand?’
‘Thass right.’
‘Now, you said in your statement that you saw blood on his cuff – that’s on his left cuff, correct?’
‘That’s right, dear.’
‘You saw his hairy wrist, his watch, and the end of his cuff sticking out beyond his jacket sleeve.’ She nodded. ‘You’re quite sure about that?’
‘Why shouldn’t I be?’ she sounded slightly annoyed now.
‘It’s just that the detail is very important on this point – I can’t explain to you why, but it matters very much. You definitely saw his left wrist, with a watch, and blood on the cuff, reaching for the lift buttons?’
‘I said it, and I meant it,’ she said firmly. ‘And if you want me in court, I’ll swear Bible-oath to it.’
‘Thank you. That’s very satisfactory.’ She smirked through her cigarette. Slider was getting black spots before his eyes from lack of oxygen. Oh no, that was just the pattern on the carpet. ‘One other thing, now. Can you visualise the man’s face? You said in your statement he had a mole on his left cheek, here.’ He tapped his own face. ‘Now are you sure it was his left cheek and not his right?’
She thought for a moment, and his heart misgave, but then she said, ‘Yes, o’ course I’m sure. Because that’s the way he was facing. That’s the side of his face I could see, wannit? His head wasn’t turned right round towards me, it was more, like, three-quarters, and it was his left side nearest me, see?’
‘Thank you,’ said Slider. ‘You’ve been very helpful.’
‘Will you ave a cuppa tea, sir?’ Mr Reynolds asked courteously.
‘Oh my Gawd, ain’t you put the kettle on yet, Bert?’ Mrs R exclaimed, struggling to extricate herself from her blanket. The movement stirred the comatose dog, which lifted its head mournfully for a moment and emitted a just-audible hiss from the other end. ‘I’d a made you one meself first off if I hadn’t been feeling a bit iffy this morning. Only e’s not been so clever either, with his chubes—’
‘No, really, thanks, no tea for me. I must go,’ Slider said, backing hastily. ‘I’ve got an awful lot to do today.’ He was almost sure a bit of the pattern on the carpet had moved, and he really didn’t want the chance to find out for certain.
The next part would be harder. He could not ask Mills without revealing the true nature of his relationship with his Auntie Betty, which, if he was innocent of the murders, Slider was almost certain he did not know. And Auntie Betty was now silenced – an image of her face, bloodied, staring, slid out from his memory. He imagined a stumbling step, the jolt of a knife in the back, and just time enough to know betrayal, to the background clamour of hysterical dogs, before the darkness came up. He shook the thought away violently. Whatever it took, he had a duty to her now. He got into the car and drove towards Brook Green.
St Melitus’s was a low, two-storeyed block in yellow brick, with picture windows over a rather severe patch of garden which sported grass with a military haircut and two oblong flowerbeds in which bedding geraniums, salvias and begonias kept rank or else. An utterly lovely seventy-foot London plane grew up from the pavement near the front gate, with languid limbs trailing scarves of leaves like Isadora Duncan, but it was evidently out of the gardener’s jurisdiction, or it would surely have been pollarded to within an inch of its life to make it smarten its ideas up.
Inside there was a central sitting-room – regrettably called an ‘association area’ – with high-backed, high-seated armchairs ranged round the walls as in a hospital waiting-room, where old people, women to men in a ratio of about eight to one, sat facing forwards and waiting for something to happen – the tea trolley or death, whichever came first. A rosy-cheeked, black-haired woman in a blue nurse’s dress fielded Slider as he came through the door.
‘Come to visit someone, have we?’ she enquired cheerfully with a hint of Irish. ‘I don’t think we’ve seen you before. Now, which one did you want?’
‘Are you the – er – matron? Head person?’
‘Superintendent,’ she helped him out. ‘No, that’s Mrs Maitland. Is it about a vacancy? We haven’t any at present—’
Slider didn’t like the idea of that ‘at present’. Some of the old people were dozing with their mouths open, and looked too close to supplying a vacancy for Slider’s comfort.
‘No, not that. I’d like to speak to Mrs Maitland about one of your residents, if I may. I’m a police officer. Detective Inspector Bill Slider, Shepherd’s Bush.’ He spoke quietly and made a discreet gesture towards his ID, in case the police presence alarmed any of the frail folk, but the cheery one laughed aloud.
‘Oh my God, have you come to arrest one of them?’ she cried in extremely audible amusement. ‘What’ve they been up to now? I’ll bet it’s our Cyril looking up ladies’ skirts again – you wicked old divil!’ The only man in the direction she threw the witticism was one of the fast-asleep ones, but the ladies on either side of him seemed to appreciate the jest. One broke into whispery laughter, and the other made a riposte so broad that Slider realised even twenty years in the police force had not prepared him for communal old age.
‘Come along, Inspector,’ said the nurse, noting his embarrassment with amused sympathy. ‘This is no place for you. I’ll take you to the office.’
Mrs Maitland turned out to be disconcertingly young, very smart, and wearing a bright yellow suit, presumably to make her easily visible. It had a very short skirt and she didn’t quite have the legs for it, but it certainly made her a more cheering sight for a matron than Hattie Jacques in NHS blue and a lamb chop frill on her head.
‘Mrs Mills – Margaret – we like to use first names here,’ she confided unsurprisingly. ‘Yes, she’s in flat 5. She’s been here for years – quite able-bodied, spry really, but she gets a bit confused sometimes.’
‘Is she aware of what’s going on? Her son’s name has appeared in the newspapers.’
‘I don’t know about that. They do get various papers here – the Mail and the Mirror and the Evening Standard. They’re put out in the association area – but whether she will have read about it I can’t say. Of course, some of them buy their own papers too, but Margaret doesn’t go out very much. Hardly at all, really, except to church sometimes, when one of the others takes her. We don’t encourage her to leave the premises alone. She spends a lot of time in her own room, in fact. A bit solitary. Sometimes we have to positively chase her out. It isn’t good for them to sit alone too long, especially the confused ones.’
‘Does she know about her sister?’
‘Not as far as I know. I didn’t know about it myself until you told me. Murdered, you say?’ She shook her head. ‘I’d rather you didn’t say anything about that. It’s a bit too upsetting. Can’t you ask her what you want without mentioning that?’
‘She’ll have to know sooner or later that her sister’s dead,’ Slider pointed out.
‘Yes, but I’d sooner one of us told her. We know them, you see, and we’re trained to deal with these things. You never know how the shock might affect them.’
Slider was beginning to take a dislike to Mrs Maitland, and was forced to restrain himself from pointing out that all of these old people had lived through one war, some of them two, and had probably experienced worse things than Mrs Maitland could imagine without the aid of a video. He didn’t like the idea that this pert young thing called the old people by their Christian names – probably without asking permission – and referred to them as if they were a species, like starfish or algae, with generic attributes. But he reminded himself that he did not take care of even one old person full time, let alone thirty or forty, let further alone not related to h
im, and bit his tongue.
‘Can I talk to Mrs Mills, then?’
‘Yes, of course. I’ll get someone to take you up, and stay with you while you have a chat, if you like.’
A middle-aged woman in a white overall dress and surprisingly peroxide hair took him up to the flat. She rang the doorbell, simultaneously putting the key hanging by a chain from her belt into the lock, and called out, ‘Maggie, it’s Joyce. Can I come in, dear?’ as she opened the door. She looked in and then nodded to Slider, preceding him into a tiny room, furnished in early MFI, of which every surface was covered in china ornaments and plaster knick-knacks whose only virtue was that they were small, and therefore of limited individual horribleness. Cumulatively, they were like an infestation. Little vases, ashtrays, animals, shepherdesses, tramps, boots, tobys, ruined castles, civic shields of seaside towns, thimbles, bambis, pink goggle-eyed puppies sitting up and begging, scooped-out swans plainly meant to double as soap-dishes, donkeys with empty panniers which ought to have held pin-cushions or perhaps bunches of violets – all jostled together in a sad visual cacophony of bad taste and birthday presents and fading holiday memories, too many to be loved, justifying themselves by their sheer weight of numbers as ‘collections’ do. Maggie’s collection of china ornaments. What can we get for Maggie? Oh, get her one of those Chinese horses – she collects things like that. That thimble with the arms of Bexhill-on-Sea – that ashtray with the Spanish dancer painted on it – that bulldog with the Union Jack waistcoat – they’d never be looked at again, they were just there, swelling the numbers, like the forgotten sleeping oldies downstairs. And when Maggie died, they’d be shovelled into a cardboard box and sent off to a misnamed Antiques Fair in a scout hall somewhere to be the things left on the stall at the end of the day.
Mrs Mills was sitting in one of the high-backed chairs by the window, her hands resting on the arms, looking out, away from the ugliness and confinement and clutter, out at the beautiful tree. She turned her head as they came in and said, ‘Go away.’
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