‘Does Mr Green really not have any contact with him now?’
‘Not for many years. They quarrelled. Too much alike, you know, each thinking he knew best. And between you, me, and the bedpost, the Gilberts had done too good a job with the boy. If ever there was a pair of smug, self-righteous bigots! Well, I thank God I’m only a housekeeper, so I don’t have to forgive everybody. Hard, that’s what they were, holy and hard, and they made him hard too. I heard him once telling Mr Green what they’d done to punish him for having a – well, not to put too fine a point on it, a wet dream – and I tell you, even Mr Green was shaken, though he’s heard some things in his life. That was why he tried to keep contact with the lad, if you ask me, to be a bit of a softer influence on him, though God knows he was a firebrand himself in his younger days, though you wouldn’t think it to see him now. But Geoffrey was beyond softening, and I wasn’t sorry when he stopped coming here. I didn’t like him upsetting Mr Green. And he had funny eyes. I didn’t like the way he looked at me sometimes. I’ve had plenty of comments in the years I’ve been housekeeper here, and they’re water off a duck’s back to me, but Geoffrey looked as if he wasn’t going to say anything, he was going to do it.’
‘What number Askew Road?’ Slider asked.
‘Ah—’ She thought, and shook her head. ‘I don’t remember. It was a high number. Seventy-six? Sixty-seven? No, I don’t remember.’
‘Wouldn’t he have it written down somewhere?’
She opened her eyes wide. ‘How should I know that? You aren’t suggesting I should look through his things, I hope?’
Slider felt he had nothing to lose. ‘Yes.’
‘I couldn’t do that,’ she said firmly. ‘No, if you can’t find out any other way, you’ll have to come back and ask him again. But I’d sooner he wasn’t upset. He’s an old man, and his heart’s not too good any more. I’m sure you’ll think of something.’
Slider allowed himself to be thrust out into the day, and walked back to his car, feeling that unreal sense of not quite touching the ground that comes from having missed a night’s sleep. So he had been right! It had seemed so improbable before, that it was only because it had also seemed so obvious he had had the courage to pursue it. Now he felt as if he had been struck rather hard on the head with a padded bludgeon. He had been right. Steve Mills had a brother. A doppelgänger. And maybe, just maybe, he was within smelling distance of the fox.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Bishop’s Move
After driving rather hopelessly up and down Askew Road, Slider parked down a side street and went into a corner newsagents. A tall and chubby Asian man stood behind the loaded counter, adding further evidence to Slider’s contention that it must be part of God’s great plan for gentlemen from the subcontinent to own corner shops. What was that line in the hymn about every corner Singh? Further in, a short, stout white woman was serving sweets and gossiping to a bosom pal, and neither looked round as Slider came in to a tinkling of the doorbell.
Mindful of the niceties, he bought a newspaper and a chocolate bar from the man, who bemused him rather because he had parted his hair straight down the middle and oiled it, in a style Slider had not seen outside of nineteen-thirties’ photographs, and also wore a Fair Isle pullover. The effect, combined with the dark, overstocked chaos of the shop, made him feel he was time-travelling. Pocketing his change, Slider drew out the photofit print, which was becoming rather dog-eared. ‘Do you know this man?’ he asked.
The man took it and looked at it briefly before scrutinising Slider rather more thoroughly and asking, ‘Are you police?’
Slider produced his ID. ‘I’ve reason to believe he lives somewhere near here. Have you seen him before?’
‘Yeah. I know him,’ the man said, still searching Slider’s face for information. ‘What’s he done?’
‘I can’t tell you that,’ Slider said. ‘Does he live near here?’
‘He’s one of my customers. Binden Road, is it? Or Bassein Park Road?’
‘I was hoping you’d tell me.’
‘Oh, d’you want me to look him up? Half a mo, then.’ He dragged out a large black ledger from under the counter and began to turn the pages, which were covered with elaborately loopy handwriting and many crossings-out and insertions. ‘Oh yeah, here we are. Bassein Park Road – d’you know it? It’s just up there on the left. He has the Guardian every day, plus the News of the World and the People on Sunday, plus he has Opera monthly, Music magazine which is also monthly, and Scouts and Scouting, which is quarterly.’ The bosom friend departed, passing behind Slider’s back, and the stout woman turned her face in their direction. ‘Very good customer. Mr Gilbert, his name is. I call him the Bishop.’
‘Who’s that, Mr Gilbert?’ the woman chimed in, sidling nearer. ‘He’s a very good customer. Very nice man.’
‘Been coming in years.’
‘My husband knows him very well.’ She slipped her hand through the man’s arm, seeming eager for a share of any kudos forthcoming from the acquaintance.
‘Why do you call him the Bishop?’ Slider asked.
‘Oh, that’s just his silly joke,’ the woman said anxiously. ‘He doesn’t mean anything.’
‘He’s very holy, is Mr Gilbert. Always talking about God and religion. Says he wanted to be a reverent once, only it didn’t work out for some reason. He talks like a bishop an’ all. Posh and snooty.’
‘He does not,’ the woman urged.
‘If he’d been a reverent, he’d’ve been a bishop by now. Never comes in without having a chat to me about the state of the world and what he’d do if he was in charge.’ He grinned. ‘Tried to get me to give out religious stuff to my customers once – I mean, me!’
‘What sort of religious stuff?’
‘Cards with religious stuff printed on them – from the Bible and that. Wanted to leave a stack by the till for me to give out.’
‘It does seem to suggest a lack of touch with reality,’ Slider said.
‘I said no. But still—’ The man shook his head in wonder at the idea. ‘Anyway, he reckons to be holy and everything, but he buys Knave and Fiesta when he thinks I’m not looking.’
‘He does not!’ the woman said, removing her hand to signify her complete detachment from this judgement.
‘Yes he does, Reet,’ the man insisted. ‘When Barry’s at the till on a Saturday and I’m up the other end doing the bills. He waits till he thinks I’m not looking and he slips them under a Dalton’s Weekly and takes them to Barry. I’ve seen him do it.’
‘Oh, you!’ the woman said, furiously.
‘What’s up? Nothing wrong with that. It’s all good clean fun. Mind you,’ he turned to Slider, ‘he looks a bit funny to me sometimes. He comes in in shorts, which isn’t natural in a man his age. And he has a funny look sometimes. Barry says he’s queer.’ The woman tutted vigorously and moved away, to distance herself further from the views being aired. ‘I wouldn’t be surprised if that wasn’t why he didn’t become a vicar or whatever you call it. Got himself into trouble. With a boy scout, eh?’ He gave Slider a grin and moved his elbow in a rib-jabbing gesture.
‘Do you know what he does for a living?’ Slider asked.
‘I think he’s a social worker or something, isn’t he? Rita?’
The woman, appealed to, stopped pretending not to be listening and said, ‘He’s a counsellor, I think they call it. Down the advice centre in Acton High Street.’
‘Have you seen him around lately?’
The man frowned. ‘Now you come to mention it, no. And I didn’t see him in here Saturday. He always comes in Saturday morning. Reet?’
‘I never saw him. But I was in and out.’
‘It was pretty busy,’ the man added apologetically. ‘Maybe he’s been ill. He’s not been in for a day or two, anyway.’
‘So I might catch him at home now, then?’
The man assented, and watched him with shining eyes, evidently longing to know what the Bishop had done.
Slider extricated himself, seeing out of the corner of his eye how the couple flew together as soon as the door was closed to engage in eager speculation, and went back to the car. He radioed in to ask for Geoffrey Gilbert’s police record to be looked up. He expected a negative, but after a lengthy wait Norma came on.
‘Guv? There’s quite a bit of it. Nothing for the last twelve years, but the seventies and early eighties there’s all sorts of things. Do you want me to read it out to you?’
‘Summarise a bit.’
‘All right. There’s a whole scad of burglaries and thefts, small stuff, some affrays and resistings – oh, here’s one, early on, riding a bicycle without lights, that’s what probably turned him into a wrong’un. Who is this guy?’
‘More recently?’
‘June 1979 fined for behaviour liable. Another in December 1979 for assault and resisting arrest. January 1982, three months’ suspended for conspiracy to wound—’
‘Is that the most recent?’
‘No, there’s December 1982, two years for ABH. I looked that one up. It was a youth who was disrupting a scout meeting he was holding. He went for him like a madman and did him over a treat. Served nine months, came out in January 1984. After that he’s been clean.’
Slider was silent. That would be about the time he moved away and severed relations with Green. Probably lost his scout troop over it. Fines and suspended sentences he could have hidden from the authorities, but an actual spell in the pokey would have obliged them to make an example of him. Whatever fires raged in him must have gone underground.
‘Is Atherton there?’ he asked.
A pause while presumably she looked around. ‘He was here a minute ago. Must have just popped out.’
‘When he gets back tell him to meet me at this address.’ He gave the address the shopkeeper had given him.
‘Right, boss. Anything else?’ Even over the telephone he could hear her curiosity.
‘No. Is everything all right there?’
‘Everyone’s upset about Mills. Mr Carver’s been doing his pieces. I think he thinks you ought to have warned him.’
‘Warned him of what?’
Norma heard the chill. ‘I don’t think Mills is guilty either,’ she said hastily. ‘Is that what you’re working on?’
‘I’ll let you know when I know. Get that message to Atherton.’
‘Okay, guv. Be careful.’
‘I always am,’ Slider said, and signed off. He drove the short distance to Bassein Park Road and parked across from the house. He watched for a while, but there was no movement at any of the windows. The house had an unkempt look, with paint peeling from the window frames, a chunk of stucco fallen from the façade, the front gate missing, the brown paint of the front door old and dirty. Unlike its neighbours it had no nets at the windows, and in the gap between the dark red curtains at the front ground-floor bay a large clear-plastic cross was stuck to the pane on the inside with one of those transparent sucker-caps. Nothing like nailing your colours to the mast, he thought. He got out of the car and walked over, and after a brief internal debate, rang the doorbell. He couldn’t hear it inside, so in case it was broken he knocked long and loudly. There was no sound of movement within. Gilbert was probably at work, establishing his alibi. When Atherton arrived they could pursue him there.
He moved across and looked in at the front window. The room was empty except for a wooden kitchen table on the far side on which was a pile of books and several of what looked like pamphlets, and two wooden chairs against the left-hand wall. The floorboards were bare and dusty and the wallpaper pale brown with age; there was an open fireplace with a spotted mirror above the mantelpiece, but the hearth and grate were littered with waste paper, sweet wrappers and apple cores.
Still no sign of Atherton. Slider was feeling light-headed with fatigue now. He went on round to the side gate, which was falling to pieces as side gates so often are, hanging by one hinge and a rusty nail, and propped half-open. There was a damp, mossy passage down the side of the house, leading to a square of unkempt grass littered with bits of broken furniture and metal of unimaginable purpose, and a large, stout and fairly new garden shed. The back door, presumably the kitchen door, had frosted glass at the top. The kitchen window was high up and had extremely dirty brown check curtains, and what had once been french windows from the back room onto the garden had, oddly, been bricked in and reduced to an ordinary-sized window, which had dark red curtains drawn across it.
It was all horribly drab and depressing, not the sort of thing you would associate with a Christian or a scoutmaster. Slider knocked at the back door, and then idly tried the handle and found to his surprise that the door was unlocked. He opened it cautiously and stepped in.
‘Hello! Is anyone at home? Hello, Mr Gilbert?’
The house was silent. Slider looked around the kitchen. It was furnished with cheap units in dark brown melamine, the electric stove was encrusted with burnt fat, and there was fawn and brown chequered lino on the floor, though little of the pattern showed through the ancient spillages and general dirt. The air smelled of mould and boiled fish. The sink was an old, chipped earthenware one, brown with years of having tea leaves emptied down it, and a heap of used enamelled tin plates and mugs sat in an inch of greasy water, awaiting the day of reckoning. The cupboard door under the sink was half-open, forced out by an overflowing waste bin, from which an eggshell, some toast crusts and an empty packet which had once held Bachelors Savoury Rice had already escaped onto the floor. Other used saucepans and more plates lay about the worktops, remembrances mostly of meals featuring toast toppers, baked beans, fried things, and one of boil-in-the-bag cod and bottled sauce which had added its perfume to the stale air. This was not the scouting way, Slider thought. Even if he had nothing but a running stream and a piece of twig, a scout cleared as he went. Gilbert had certainly let standards slip.
By the door into the rest of the house was a cork notice-board, and Slider padded over to it, each footstep sticking slightly to the gunky floor and coming up with a little sucking sound. To the notice-board were pinned a number of newspaper cuttings, mostly just headlines from the sensational Sundays. MAN SHOT WIFE AND LOVER CAUGHT IN ACT. BISHOP’S SECRET LOVE-CHILD. ‘QUIET’ MAN GOES BERSERK WITH AXE – FIVE DEAD. PC’S HAND SEVERED IN MACHETE ATTACK. ROCKER VICAR’S KNICKER SHOCKER. REVENGE KILLER BLOODBATH HORROR. There was also the cutting about the Greatrex murder with the picture of Mills and the news that he was being questioned about irregularities, and a cutting from a shiny magazine which was a review of a recording of The Damnation of Faust with Lupton conducting the RLP – Joanna’s orchestra – with the CD serial numbers marked with shocking pink highlighter.
This was one disturbed dude, Slider thought – but the cutting about Mills was real evidence. It was too good an opportunity to miss. He opened the door and stepped out into the hall. The floorboards were bare, and a bicycle stood between the stairs and the front door, an ancient sit-up-and-beg bike with black paint and chrome mudguards which, unlike everything else he had seen so far, was clean and shinily well-kept. He walked past the open door to the front room he had seen through the window, and went lightly up the naked stairs. There was a bathroom on the mezzanine which he looked into and quickly out of, and three small bedrooms which were all empty – unfurnished and with no floor coverings. Puzzled, he went downstairs again. Gilbert must live and sleep in the only other room left, the ground-floor back.
He opened the door cautiously. The room was in half-darkness because of the curtains drawn across the window, but he could see well enough. It had a frowzy smell of feet and stale bedding and sweat and dust and general uncleanness that made Slider want to gag; certainly, this was where the man lived and moved and had his being. It was horribly ugly and comfortless – underfoot a variety of dirty old rugs of different sizes and colours almost concealed the original carpet, and a naked light bulb dangled from the centre of the ceiling. The room was almost square. Along the left-hand wall
was a narrow divan bed, the bedclothes thrown back and rumpled, the linen grey with use and the blankets old and stained, and on the floor beside it were further used plates and mugs. Beyond it was an old armchair littered with clothes, and in the corner a hand basin, with a shelf bearing a clutter of half-used toiletries and a mirror above it.
Under the window was a table covered in papers and books, amongst which Slider could see some London telephone directories, a London A–Z, and a couple of foolscap student’s pads closely written.
Behind the door on the right was a paraffin stove standing on a tin tray, and next to it a wicker chair, on which he noted coats and jackets were piled. On the right-hand wall was an enormous old-fashioned wardrobe with a mass of boxes and bulging bags on the top, and next to that, between it and the window wall, ran a wooden bench. It looked handmade, a plank seat, thick, stout square legs, and a tongue-and-groove back screwed to the wall with heavy coach bolts. Slider looked at it reluctantly, for it had plainly been customised for some purpose he did not want to imagine. A semi-circular piece had been cut out of the front edge of the seat in the middle, and two thick iron rings – the sort you might tether horses to in an old-fashioned stable – had been screwed into the seat, one at either end. A piece of dirty rope lay on the bench and a crumpled piece of cloth which might have been a pillowcase; underneath it was stacked an impressive collection of soft-porn magazines. Slider swallowed saliva and moved his gaze elsewhere. The wardrobe. What was in the wardrobe?
The door hung half-open, and he pushed it a little wider. The hanging section was stuffed with clothes, suits, trousers, jackets, shirts, coats, some newish, even tolerable, others old, scruffy, smelling dirty. In the bottom a jumble of shoes gave out a strong but cold smell of feet – oddly enough not a pair of trainers amongst them, but two pairs of black plimsoles, one with holes where the big toes had worn through. There was also, significantly, a shoebox which proved to contain several packets of surgical gloves. The shelved section was stuffed with pullovers and underwear, all but the bottom three shelves, which contained scouting clothes – shorts, shirts, a Baden-Powell hat which must be an antique – and insignia, all clean, pressed, and neatly folded. It might have been poignant in other circumstances.
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