‘Oh,’ said Slider sadly, ‘I don’t think that’s what she was doing.’
NINETEEN
100-What Brain
The Mossmans lived in Doyle Gardens, between Harlesden and Kensal Rise, areas which were in any case so close together it was impossible to say where one began and the other ended. It was a large semi-detached house in what had once been quite a posh street, but was now creeping arthritically downhill; but the house had a large garden which backed on to the sports ground, which perhaps accounted for the family’s staying put. There was an elderly but well-kept Mercedes saloon on the hardstanding, and a space where the ghostly outline on the paving said another car was customarily parked. Slider, detective faculties working at full tilt, deduced that Mrs Mossman was home but Mr Mossman was still at his place of business.
So it proved. She was a comfortable rather than glamorous woman, upholstered of figure and sensibly dressed, and the house smelled of soup and furniture polish. The motherly and wifely arts were evidently her forte. A dog came bouncing to meet Slider – mongrel, but with a large injection of black lab – and halfway down the passage a cat appeared and wound sinuously round his legs before galloping for the kitchen.
It was to the kitchen that Mrs Mossman led him, excusing herself that she was in the middle of something.
‘That’s all right,’ Slider said. ‘I like kitchens.’
This one looked over the garden, was not newly refurbished, and was full of the clutter of living. On the stove, stock bubbled in a pot. Pastry was lying out on a marble slab waiting to be rolled, and there were cubes of meat and onion seething gently in a frying pan.
‘Steak and kidney pie?’ he suggested.
She gave him a small, brief smile. ‘Steak and onion pie. Cyril doesn’t care for kidneys. I suppose it’s Frieda you want to speak to? It is about this awful business, isn’t it – poor Zellah Wilding?’
‘Yes, I’m afraid so.’
‘It’s so terrible.’ Behind her glasses, her brown eyes were large and moist, as if ready to overflow. ‘I keep thinking how it could have been Frieda – not that we’d have let her roam about the Scrubs alone like that. I can’t think what the Wildings were up to. They were always so strict with Zellah. I don’t understand how they suddenly let her go wandering about in the middle of the night in a place like that. But then you can be killed right outside your own front door these days, in broad daylight, can’t you? Oh, it’s a terrible world! But I try not to frighten Frieda too much. Cyril and I want her to be strong and independent. It’s such a problem, balancing that against keeping her safe. I hate even letting her go to school on her own, but you have to untie the apron strings, don’t you? I don’t want her to be one of those girls who can’t do anything for herself, or find her way anywhere. There are plenty of those at school, I can tell you – get driven to school in the morning and collected at night, and taken everywhere in a car. Their parents are nothing but unpaid chauffeurs, and it’s not good for the girls to be so dependent. When we were seventeen we went everywhere on our own. But then something like this happens, and it makes you pause. You just don’t know what to think, what to do for the best.’
Slider said, ‘I know exactly what you mean. I have a daughter myself.’ He was surprised at himself for offering the fact, but he felt her dilemma acutely. ‘If it helps, I don’t think it was a random killing.’
‘Oh?’ She was surprised, and didn’t know quite how to take it. ‘I thought I read that you’d arrested some awful serial killer.’
‘We have to follow lines of enquiry as they arise. They don’t all lead to the right conclusion. In fact, I believe now that the killer knew Zellah.’
‘They do say,’ she said introspectively, ‘that it’s more often someone the victim knows.’
‘That’s true,’ Slider said.
‘I don’t know that it makes me feel any safer,’ she concluded.
‘I sometimes wonder,’ Slider said, ‘whether feeling safe isn’t a modern luxury we’ve got used to comparatively recently. Historically, life was always dangerous and uncertain.’
‘I suppose you’re right,’ she said with the brief, tight smile again. ‘But the fact is we have got used to it. Well, I mustn’t keep you. You’ll want to talk to Frieda. She’s upstairs studying. I’ll just turn the gas down and go and fetch her. You can talk to her in the lounge – I expect you’d sooner be alone with her?’
Slider was impressed by her understanding and generosity. ‘If you don’t mind.’
‘No, I know there are things girls won’t say in front of their parents. You’ll try not to frighten her, though, won’t you? No gory details or anything?’
‘Of course not; nothing like that. I shan’t mention the murder itself. I only want to talk to her about what Zellah was like.’
She nodded, but with a penetrating look that both sought reassurance and threatened reprisal if he got it wrong. She led him through into the lounge, an expensively, rather heavily furnished room, well-kept and comfortable but not the least fashionable. There were framed photographs on every surface; an upright piano against one wall, open and with music on the stand as if it were regularly used; bright dahlias put, rather than arranged, in a vase on the windowsill. A gas coal-effect fire occupied the grate under the 1930s mantelpiece, and the dog, who followed them in, lay down on the rug in front of it as though it were his habitual spot. The cat pranced in too, sprang up on to the back of an armchair and arched its back, inviting caress. Everything here spoke of a family home, of belonging and care and custom, of a little interknit tribe pursuing its innocent routines. It was so different from the Wildings’ jarring, comfortless mismatch. Here was a small haven of a world, built inside the larger chaos of a great metropolis and the twenty-first century. He hoped desperately that nothing bad would ever come to blast it open.
In a little while Mrs Mossman appeared at the door and ushered in a small, plumpish girl with frizzy hair and glasses, wearing blue cotton Capri pants and a plain white T-shirt. She looked at Slider uncertainly, her bare toes curling for comfort into the carpet pile.
‘This is Frieda,’ Mrs Mossman said. ‘Frieda, this is Detective Inspector Slider. He wants to talk to you about Zellah. You must talk to him absolutely honestly, darling. I shall be in the kitchen if you want me.’ She looked at Slider. ‘Do you mind dogs? Shall I take him away?’
‘I like dogs,’ Slider said. He thought its presence would be comforting to the girl. ‘He’s fine. What’s his name?’
‘Barney.’ The dog looked up and beat his tail at the sound of his name. ‘I’ll leave you to it, then,’ Mrs Mossman said, and departed.
Frieda remained at the door, watching Slider alertly, like an animal poised for flight. She seemed pale, and looked as though she had been crying a lot recently. She appeared younger than seventeen, and there was little under her T-shirt to disturb the shape of it. Her plump face was still a child’s, her whole posture unaware of the power of the female body. He looked with sympathy at the impossible hair and the strong glasses. He imagined Sophy’s cruel remarks and the hurt they had caused: behind the lenses, the eyes, intensely dark as coffee beans, were intelligent. There was nothing wrong with her features: she had good skin, and one day she would switch to contacts, subdue her hair and be as attractive as the next girl, but there was no use in saying that to a teenage girl. His own daughter thought she had a big nose, and when she looked in the mirror that was all she saw. We all have to pin our disappointments on something.
‘Come and sit down,’ he said. He sat himself in one of the armchairs. It was the one the cat was decorating, and it jumped down at once on to his lap and started kneading bread. The sound of its purr filled the room like the sound of a trapped bumble bee.
‘He likes you,’ Frieda said. Her voice was light and small, as though she was trying not to make an impression on the world.
‘I like cats, too,’ he said.
‘People are mostly cat people or dog people,’ she said. �
��It’s quite rare to be both.’ She drifted across the room and perched on the edge of the chair opposite, but only, said her demeanour, so that she could stroke Barney. Barney at once flopped on to his side and presented his belly – the gesture of a nice dog who knew his place in the hierarchy.
‘I like all animals,’ Slider said. ‘My father was a farmer.’ Two revelations in five minutes – what was wrong with him? He was too comfortable here. It was dangerous.
‘I’d have liked to be a farmer,’ Frieda said. ‘But there’s no money in it, and it’s terribly hard work. A lot of the girls want to be vets, but they’re just sentimental about animals. They don’t understand what it really means.’
‘What do you want to do, now you’re not going to be a farmer?’
She looked at him carefully, to see if he was teasing her, and then said, ‘I’m going to be a doctor.’ She said it with unemphatic firmness, as though there were no doubt about it, so no need to be dogmatic.
‘Good for you,’ he said.
‘Why “good for me”?’ Her voice was light and sharp. She didn’t want to be patronized.
‘The country needs doctors,’ he said. ‘Is your father one?’
‘No, Daddy’s in the wine trade. He used to deal futures on Liv-ex, but now he’s a buyer for a big wholesaler. It’s more fun because he gets to go on trips all the time.’ She sat up, abandoning the dog’s belly, and said, ‘But you didn’t come here to talk about careers. You don’t need to put me at ease with small talk, you know. I’m perfectly all right.’
‘I can see that,’ Slider said. Her light, clipped voice said she was at ease, but her eyes said differently.
‘You want to talk to me about Zellah.’
‘Of course. I want to know what she was like.’
‘In what way?’ It was a wary question.
‘I believe she was very bright,’ Slider said, for somewhere to start. ‘Intelligent?’
‘Yes, she was. She and I did classes together. We were both doing science A levels. That’s not popular, you know. The popular girls do arts, and non-subjects like media and fashion.’ She mentioned them witheringly. ‘Nowadays it’s more important to be pretty and fashionable than clever. Even those that have a brain try to hide it. It’s so stupid.’
‘Even Zellah? Did she try to hide it?’
‘Not at first,’ Frieda said. ‘Frankly, she was even more intelligent than me. She was brilliant. And not just at academic subjects. She could draw, too, and she did music, and ballet.’ She saw Slider’s glance towards the piano and said, ‘Yes, I can play. I’ve taken piano since I was six. But I’ll never be any good at it. A lot of music is mathematics, and I can do that side of it all right, but I don’t have the artistic talent. I can’t put the feeling into it.’
‘And Zellah could?’
‘Yes. She was artistic and academic. It’s very rare.’
‘Like being both a cat person and a dog person.’
She looked at him with something like scorn, as if he just didn’t get it. ‘She was a polymath,’ she said sternly.
‘So what changed?’ he asked.
Her mouth turned down. ‘Boys,’ she said witheringly. ‘She started to get silly about boys. That’s all they think about, the popular girls – people like Chloë Paulson and Sophy Cooper-Hutchinson. Always preening themselves and wearing make-up and hanging around waiting for the St Martin’s boys to come out. It’s so stupid.’ She looked at him sharply as if he had said something. ‘Oh, I know what you’re thinking – that it’s just sour grapes? It’s not. I know what I look like. And I know I’m never going to look any different. But it’s not that. I don’t care, you see. I’ve got a brain, and that’s worth any amount of good looks. Good looks go off, you know, but your brain lasts your whole life. I mean to do something with mine. And before you ask, no, I’m not worried about getting married. I don’t care about it. Not now. I’ve got too much else to think about. Anyway, I expect in the end I’ll marry one of my cousins – I’ve got hundreds, and they all seem to marry each other. But not until I’ve excelled in my field.’
‘Have you chosen your field yet?’ he asked, hoping to get back in her good books with an intelligent question.
‘Genetics,’ she said with the same light sureness. ‘There’s the potential to cure every known disease, condition and syndrome through genetic manipulation. The possibilities are literally endless. All the great medical discoveries of this century are going to be in genetics.’
‘I see you set yourself high standards,’ Slider said. ‘And I can understand how you felt Zellah had let herself down.’
‘She did,’ Frieda said hotly. ‘She had everything – brains, talent. She was even beautiful. I mean, she really was – ten times more beautiful than those other girls, if that means anything, which it doesn’t. But she never seemed to know how lucky she was. Suddenly she wanted to be popular, and hang around with the in girls, no matter how vapid they were.’
‘You didn’t understand it,’ Slider suggested.
‘Not from her. I mean, when we were younger, we all used to hang out together, and it didn’t matter. Sophy and Chloë and Zellah and me, and another couple of girls, Matilda and Polly, but they’ve left now. And then it all changed.’
‘When did it change?’
‘About eighteen months, two years ago. It used to be that ballet and ponies were the thing, and then suddenly it was nothing but boys. I stopped really liking Sophy and Chloë, but I thought Zellah was different. But she seemed to want to be in with them, so I stayed with her too, for a while. But it all got too silly.’
‘In what way?’
‘Sophy and Chloë were obsessed with sex,’ Frieda said scornfully. She clasped her hands between her knees, her toes pointing away from each other. A child’s unselfconscious pose. ‘It was all they talked about. It was like a competition between them over who could be most outrageous, have the most boyfriends, be the first to go all the way. It was just pathetic.’
‘Do you think they did go all the way?’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said shortly. ‘The thing was, Zellah went along with it, competed with them, boasted even worse than them. I’m sure they were convinced she had. They thought she was terrific for it. For being the first. How could anyone be so shallow? I couldn’t understand why Zellah did it.’
‘Maybe she just wanted to be liked.’
‘For that? Why?’ She seemed angry about it.
‘Did she have a lot of other friends?’
‘Not really. I was her best friend, up till then. She wasn’t allowed to have girls home, or to go out much after school, so it made it difficult for her. She was always a bit of a loner.’
‘Well, doesn’t that explain why she might want to try to fit in with girls like Sophy and Chloë?’ Slider said.
He was also thinking puberty, but the onset of that was not something he could or would discuss with Frieda, who didn’t look as if she was much bothered with it yet.
‘But she had me,’ Frieda said. ‘Or she did until she took up with that awful Mike.’
‘Was he awful?’
‘She didn’t think so. She was mad for him. Sophy hated him. After that they didn’t hang around together so much. Oh, but then she remembered she did have another friend,’ she added with a hint of bitterness. ‘When it was convenient to her.’
‘You?’
‘I covered for her. When she wanted to see Mike, I let her pretend she was visiting me. It was one of the few things her father let her do. She’d say she was coming to see me after ballet on Saturday, or after school, but really she was seeing Mike.’
‘Do you think she was in love with him?’ Slider asked, stroking the cat. It had settled, couching on his lap, eyes closed with bliss.
She considered carefully. ‘I think she was infatuated,’ she said decidedly. It was almost comical, the contrast between the adult vocabulary, and the little-girl form before him. ‘She thought she was in love, but when the real thing c
ame along, she realized it was different from what she felt for Mike.’ She looked at him sternly, determined to keep him straight. ‘She didn’t say all this to me, you understand. It’s what I deduced. She never spoke much about her feelings. She was a very private person, really. But she was mad about Mike, but when she met the new man, she dropped Mike like a hot potato. I almost felt sorry for him – not that I think he was the type to care. But she really, really loved the new man. It was different. I could see it was different.’
Slider was almost holding his breath. ‘And who was the new man?’
‘I don’t know,’ Frieda said.
Well, what had he hoped for? It was never that easy.
‘All I know,’ she went on, ‘is that he lived not far from here, because she spoke once about walking from here to his house. And he was a lot older than her. She said something about it being nice to be with a real grown-up and not just a boy like Mike. She went all dreamy-eyed when she mentioned him. But if ever I asked who he was, or anything about him, she clammed up. I got the impression,’ she said in her careful way, ‘that there was something wrong.’ She stared down at the dog for a moment, who wagged hopefully back, but her mind was elsewhere. ‘I know it’s a terrible thing to say,’ she said at last, looking up at him, ‘but I’ve wondered if . . . well, if he was married.’
‘What makes you think that?’
‘Oh, I don’t know. But if he wasn’t, why did it all have to be such a secret?’
‘Because her parents wouldn’t have liked her to have a boyfriend?’
‘Oh, I don’t mean secret from them. Obviously it had to be a secret from them,’ she said, shaking her head at his stupidity. ‘But why keep it a secret from me? She didn’t keep Mike a secret from me. Or from Sophy and Chloë. But I don’t think they even knew she had a new boyfriend.’
‘I don’t think they did either,’ Slider said encouragingly. ‘I think you knew Zellah much better than they did.’
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