‘Do you think Zellah was in love with Mike?’
He thought about it. ‘I think she was – at first, anyway. She was mad about him, and it wasn’t just sex. It must have been a lonely life for her, the way things were at home. But it was always hard to tell with Zellah what she really thought about anything. And of course she did dump him in the end.’
‘Ending it was her idea, was it?’
‘Well, according to Mike she just stopped phoning him. He couldn’t understand it.’
‘She didn’t give a reason?’
‘Mike never said. I think he was a bit miffed, so he didn’t like talking about it.’
‘Do you remember when that was – when they stopped seeing each other?’
He shook his head slowly. ‘I can’t say exactly. A couple of months ago, anyway. It’s not like I wrote it down in my diary, you know?’
‘Try to think. It may be important.’
He screwed up his face. ‘I can’t remember,’ he said at last. ‘Some time after Easter. They were still together in the Easter holidays, I remember that, because of all the planning that went on, for them to be able to see each other. So it was after that. Beginning, middle of May, maybe.’
‘But of course they may still have been seeing each other secretly,’ Slider threw in casually.
‘I don’t think so,’ Paulson said at once. ‘She was seeing someone else.’
‘Are you sure about that?’
‘Oh, yes,’ he said. ‘But I don’t know who,’ he added, anticipating the question. ‘She was very secretive about it.’
‘She didn’t ever meet him at your house?’
‘No. I don’t know where they met. He must have had his own place. You see, when she was going out with Mike, I didn’t see her here so much, because she was meeting him at his flat. And when she broke off with him, she came here a bit more often, but not as much as before Mike. So I reckon she was seeing the new bloke at his place.’
Slider pondered this. ‘What did Chloë and Sophy think about the new boyfriend?’
‘I don’t think they knew about him. I think she was keeping him a secret from them. I never heard her talk about him.’
‘Then how do you know there was anybody?’ Slider said, frustrated.
He found this question difficult to answer. ‘I just know there was someone. She was in love. You could see it – that look they have, sort of dreamy and always thinking about something else. She was like that about Mike at first, but she wasn’t secretive about him – not with us, anyway. No, I’m certain there was someone. But it was a big secret.’
‘Why did it have to be a secret?’ Slider asked. He felt a sense of doom creeping up on him. Not a whole new person to investigate, not at this stage!
‘I don’t know. Maybe it was someone she thought Sophy would disapprove of. Maybe she just didn’t want to go through all that again.’ He stretched. ‘Anything else? ’Cause I’ve got a bit of work I ought to finish up, and I’m going out tonight.’
‘Just a couple more questions,’ Slider said. Because of the way he was sitting he had been staring, over Paulson’s shoulder, at an enormous painting on the wall over the fireplace, and it reminded him of something Carmichael had said. ‘I understand you know Alex Markov?’
‘Yeah, I’ve met him at parties and things. We’re not close mates or anything, but I know him.’
‘He’s another customer of Mike Carmichael’s, I understand.’
He looked cautious. ‘Well, I don’t know about that.’
‘Oh, come on, if you’ve met him at parties you must know he likes the same jollies as you. Anyway, Mike told me so.’
‘Well, why are you asking me, then?’ he said sulkily. ‘Yeah, he does a line or two. So what? Everyone does.’
‘More than a line or two?’
‘I’m not his keeper. But I’ve seen him get monged occasionally. Well, more than occasionally. What of it?’
‘Has he been here to your flat?’
‘Yeah, once or twice,’ he said reluctantly. Evidently Markov was not someone he wanted to have associated with his name – at least, not in front of a police officer. Slider found that interesting. He had been enthusiastic about Carmichael, who on the face of it was a far more dangerous acquaintance to admit.
‘Has he met the girls here?’ he asked.
‘I don’t think so. But they know him anyway – he’s a teacher at their school. He’s not like an ordinary teacher, though,’ he added quickly, in case Slider thought him uncool to hang with a member of the NUT. ‘He teaches art, and he’s an artist himself. The teaching’s just to pay the rent, you know. The painting’s his real career. He’s good. I bought one of his things once – that’s it, over there. Cool, isn’t it?’
The massive canvas, about six feet by four, was painted with two oblongs of different shades of red, which overlapped near the middle making a third shade. It dominated that end of the room, but cool was the last thing Slider would have said about all that redness.
‘I don’t know anything about modern art,’ he excused himself.
‘Well, I don’t either,’ Paulson confessed endearingly, ‘but I liked the colour, and the poor bloke was short of a bob or two and I’d just had a bonus, so I thought it couldn’t hurt. An original Markov – maybe it’ll be worth a fortune one day. Who knows?’
‘Why was he short of money?’
‘I don’t know,’ Paulson said with easy indifference. ‘Expensive lifestyle, I suppose.’ Slider thought of the flat, the skiing holidays, and above all the drug habit. ‘I don’t think the teaching pays much – it’s not full-time.’
‘There’s his painting,’ Slider suggested.
‘When he sells one. I don’t suppose it’s that often. Anyway, he told me once it was his wife who had to take out the mortgage in her name, because he didn’t have enough equity in his salary to cover the loan.’
‘Have you met her?’
‘No, they don’t really go around together. She’s a high-up nurse and she works shifts. To tell you the truth, I think they’re having problems. But I don’t really know. You’d have to ask him about that. All I can say is, I’ve never seen them out together. Why do you want to know about Alex, anyway?’
‘No particular reason. He was just mentioned in passing in a conversation. One last thing. Can you tell me what you were doing on Sunday night?’
He entirely failed to be alarmed by the question. He laughed. ‘When did you last see your father, eh? Well, let me see. I got home Sunday morning from a party about four-ish, went to bed, got up about midday, went down the pub with the others and met some friends. One of them’s married with a family and everything, and he invited us back to his place in Holland Park for Sunday lunch. Stayed there for the rest of the day. Then about nine we went on to a party in Clapham, at a friend of Jeremy’s. He’s my flatmate, Jeremy? Jeremy, Jamie, Ben and me share this flat.’
‘You didn’t come back here to change or anything?’
‘No, you want to keep away from the area when the Carnival’s on,’ he said. ‘That’s why we were glad to go to Gary and Stella’s for Sunday lunch. So then the four of us went on to this party in Clapham and stayed there all night. We came back Monday morning about ten-ish, got cleaned up, and then Ben and Jamie went to see their parents, and Jeremy and I went out to see a friend who lives in Hampstead.’
‘Did you drive there?’
‘Tube. I don’t have a car. I don’t think it’s worth it in London. The parking’s horrendous.’
This chimed with something in Slider’s memory and he stared at the big, red painting for a moment until it clicked. Alex Markov had said almost the same thing. ‘How did you get that painting home on the tube?’ he asked. ‘It must have been awkward.’
Paulson turned round and looked at it. ‘Oh, I didn’t. Alex delivered it.’
‘Still must have been awkward on the tube.’
Paulson looked puzzled. ‘He brought it in his car.’
‘I thought he didn’t have one.’
‘I don’t know,’ Paulson said with a broad shrug. ‘He came in a car, that’s all I know. Maybe he borrowed one.’
‘Maybe that was it,’ Slider said. He stood up to take his leave. The alibi, given freely and unhesitatingly, as from the depths of a clear conscience, was eminently checkable, so Slider wasn’t going to check it. He hadn’t suspected Paulson of anything anyway. He had only hoped he might have been around to see something. But that was out.
At the door, Oliver Paulson became serious again, remembering what it was all about. ‘I can’t believe poor little Zellah got murdered,’ he said. ‘Why would anyone do that? I read in the paper you’d arrested a serial killer for it, but if it was a serial killer, why would you come round here asking me about Mike? You don’t think he had anything to do with it?’
‘Don’t you think he’s capable of it?’ Slider countered.
‘Well, he’s got a bit of a temper on him. I suppose he’s had to fight his way out a few times, coming from the Woodley South. But I always thought he was a decent bloke underneath. I mean, I wouldn’t have introduced him to my sister otherwise.’
Ah, that was it, Slider thought. He was feeling guilty for having brought Mike and Zellah together in the first place. Or maybe there had been things said at home, by the parents.
‘When it comes to unregulated passions, anyone can be capable of anything,’ Slider said neutrally.
‘I suppose so,’ Paulson said, still troubled. ‘But I wouldn’t have thought Mike would do something like that. Was that why you were asking about him?’
He evidently meant to have an answer. Slider said, ‘I’m asking about everyone in Zellah’s life. Trying to find out what she was really like.’
‘Good luck with that,’ Paulson said shortly. ‘She was a hard one to know, that one. An enigma.’
A riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma, Slider thought, going back to his car. Perhaps, as with Russia, the key lay in self-interest. He just had to find what, in Zellah’s case, that had been.
EIGHTEEN
How Do I Love Thee? Let Me Ring You Back
Slider idled back to the station, through the home-going traffic, allowing his thoughts to disconnect in the hope that a lot of small things that were bothering him would join forces and present him with a petition.
O’Flaherty was the duty sergeant. ‘Ah, Billy, me boy, dere y’are!’ he said largely. His ‘Simple Man o’ the Bogs’ act, begun years before as a defence mechanism, had become a mere mannerism now. ‘Someone waiting to see you.’
‘That’s what they’ll put on my tombstone,’ Slider said.
‘Well, now,’ Fergus said, leaning on the door frame as one settling in for a bunny, ‘in a very real an’ metaphysical sense that’d be true.’
‘This is not the moment to convert me to Catholicism. Can we have the unreal and non-metaphysical news first?’
‘Ye’re a disappointment to me, darlin’,’ Fergus said with a fat sigh. ‘I could ha’ given it to Atherton, but I thought y’d be grateful, and y’d see me right for it. I only need another five conversions now to get me sainthood.’
‘I’ll convert later,’ Slider said, ‘though why you should care whether I’m analogue or digital . . . Who’s waiting for me?’
O’Flaherty gestured into the shop, and Slider peered round the door, to see a brace of teenagers sitting on the bench, looking resigned.
‘I think it could be your Snogging Couple,’ Fergus said. ‘Now isn’t that worth something?’
Slider patted his pockets. ‘I’d give you a Hail Mary but I’ve left my wallet upstairs.’
‘I can make change for a Paternoster,’ Fergus said hopefully. ‘Ah, you CID types are all tight. Short arms and long pockets. Where d’yiz want Janet and John?’
‘Stick them in an interview room.’ Slider sighed. ‘I wish you had given them to Atherton. I’ve got a lot to think about.’
‘He’s out. Ah, go on, take ’em! Me instinct tells me they’ve somethin’ to say. And they did come in of their own free will.’
‘If it’s the Snogging Couple, they should have come in days ago,’ Slider grumbled. ‘Oh well, I’d better talk to them, I suppose. They won’t have anything to tell me, of course. Just want to be noticed.’
‘Don’t we all?’ Fergus said.
‘I thought as a Catholic you were always being noticed.’
‘Glad to see y’ haven’t lost y’ sense a humour, darlin’,’ Fergus said, and went off to fetch the witnesses.
The Snogging Couple – for so it turned out to be – were Chantelle Watts and Tyler Burton. She was a meaty, pallid girl with straight fair hair, spots on her chin, an outsize bust and a stud in her eyebrow. He was slim, remarkably unpierced in any dimension, and had the thick black hair and tan skin that suggested Italian heritage. He looked a lot younger than her, though that may have been the effect of his slightness against her bulk, and the world-weary air that she felt suitable to the present situation.
‘My mum said we oughta come in,’ Chantelle said, when the introductions and social niceties had been got over. ‘She said there might be a reward.’
‘I’m afraid that’s not likely to happen,’ Slider said. ‘But you are doing the right thing in coming forward. That should be reward enough, to know you are helping.’
This idea wandered about the ether looking for a home, but evidently found Chantelle’s environment inhospitable. After an extensive gape she said, ‘What, you mean there’s no money in it?’
‘No one has offered a reward for information – yet. But I tell you what, I’ll make a note of your names and everything you tell me, and if there’s a reward offered later, you’ll be in line for it.’
Tyler, who seemed to be marginally the sharper tack of the two, jumped in while she was still construing this, and said, ‘I don’t want me name in the papers. Me dad’d kill me if he knew I was round ’ere. He don’t like us talking to the fuzz.’
‘Why don’t you just tell me what you know,’ Slider said patiently, cursing Atherton’s absence, Fergus’s instincts, and the lack of tea in his bloodstream, ‘and we’ll see how it goes. You saw something on Sunday night, did you?’
It took a degree of coaxing and carefully designed questions to extract the story, though after the first few sentences they were not unwilling to talk. Being noticed by a policeman was better than not being noticed by anyone, which was their usual fate. It was just that they had no idea how to string two sentences together – indeed, stringing words together was almost beyond them. Their real linguistic skill lay at the phoneme level. Chantelle could have snorted and grunted for Britain.
The story, as Slider painstakingly reconstructed it, was that they had been ‘messing around’ together most of Sunday, having met at Chantelle’s house in the afternoon, watched a film on telly, eaten some frozen pizza (though not, Slider was relieved to hear, until after it had been microwaved by Chantelle’s mum) and then, when the film was over, had become bored enough to heave themselves out of the sofa and go out in search of some mates.
That, he managed to work out, was about six o’clock. They had gone to a friend’s house, hung about there for a bit, then they and the friend had ‘gone down The Fairway’, where there was a patch of open green in front of the houses where they and their peers generally ‘hung about’. They had loitered around there for some time, ‘having a laugh’, which meant, as Slider knew, gossiping, teasing and insulting each other, texting and phoning other friends on their mobiles, and playing electronic games on the same. There were about ten of them, ranging in age from Tyler, who was just fifteen, through Chantelle who was sixteen, to a youth called Dean Scraggs who was eighteen but ‘a bit daft’, and therefore not welcome with any of the older gangs.
Finally some householders had objected to the noise and had come out to tell them to clear off, and having become bored with the scene, they obliged. They had wandered down to East Acton Lane, shedding a couple of b
odies on the way, and fetched up at the Goldsmith’s Arms, where they had hung about outside while Dean Scraggs went in and bought two pints of lager. He brought them out and they shared them between them, standing on the pavement, where a number of other clients were enjoying the warm evening.
Eventually they had got noisy and drawn attention to themselves, and the publican, worried for his licence, came out and told them to clear off. There was another patch of green at the junction of East Acton Lane and Friar’s Place Lane, and they had hung about there for a bit, then wandered back the way they had come, losing more of the group. At the off-licence on Western Parade they had had a whip round and accumulated enough for Dean to go in and buy a bottle of cider. The remaining six of them had gone up to Old Oak Common and sat on the grass and drunk the cider and ‘had a laugh’ until it and the cigarettes had run out, at which point the other four had departed.
The recitation of this emptiness would have depressed Slider if he hadn’t heard it so many times before, and if it hadn’t seemed to be leading to something he needed to know.
‘What time do you think that was?’ he asked. ‘When the others left?’
Chantelle shrugged, but Tyler said, ‘It musta bin about eleven, summing like that. Cos when I texted Bazza it said eleven-fifteen on the phone, and that was after.’
This generation, Slider reflected, told the time more often by their mobiles than by watches. ‘Go on,’ he said. ‘What happened next?’
Alone together, the couple had chatted a bit and texted some friends, and then had grown amorous. They had started ‘snogging’, but after a bit they got annoyed because there were so many people coming past, and some of them tutted, and some of them stared, and Chantelle ‘lost it’ and mouthed off at them. Tyler didn’t want to get in a fight because he was more interested in Chantelle’s jugs and the prospect of investigating her knickers, so he proposed that they move round behind the council changing-room block. In its shadow, and concealed from the road, they would have a bit of privacy. And there they stayed, preoccupied with each other, until the girl had come along.
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