‘What sort of threats?’
‘Oh, nothing specific. Just that he’d get his own back on me and that I’d be sorry, that sort of thing. And two days later someone broke our front window in the middle of the night. I’ve no doubt at all that it was him.’
‘Did you see him?’ Atherton asked.
‘No. I told you, it was the middle of the night. I was asleep until the noise woke me up. By the time I looked out, there was no one there. And a couple of weeks later both the wing mirrors were ripped off my car. Pam said it could have been anyone, but I knew who did it. Bad blood will out.’
‘How did you know his father was in jail?’
‘He told me so himself, that night he brought her home. Practically boasted about it.’
‘It’s an odd way to introduce yourself to a girl’s father.’
‘He said he didn’t want me to find out and think he’d kept it from him. I asked why he should think I was interested, because he was never getting within a mile of Zellah ever again. Then he started calling me names; Pam started shouting and Zellah burst into tears.’ He stared morosely at the carpet.
‘So when did all this happen?’
‘A couple of months ago.’ He looked up, remembering the point they had reached, and his face hardened again. ‘You go and interview Mr Michael Carmichael of the Woodley South Estate.’
‘We’ll certainly do that,’ Atherton said, his interest quickening. Everyone had heard of Woodley South, the bane of the Thames Valley Police: one of those bare and ugly estates, cheaply run up in the sixties to get families out of central London, which had degenerated into far worse slums than the evacuees had come from, a place of blowing rubbish, burned-out cars, unemployment, boarded-up windows, late night joy-riders, and hooded drug dealers.
Lately the Reading police had undertaken a ‘clampdown’ to try to make a dent in the crime figures in advance of an application for central funds for a regeneration project. Their methods and results had been widely written up for, and discussed in, the Job, which was why the name resonated with him.
It always amazed Atherton that anyone managed to live even a near-normal life in such circumstances, and yet from his own experience there were always some decent families among the low-lifers in these places, desperately clinging on to standards, doing their best and getting precious little help from the authorities. It was possible young Mr Carmichael was one of the good guys, and his outburst in the Wildings’ front parlour was from frustration at being judged on his appearance and postcode. On the other hand, there was a better than even chance he was one of the bad hats, and there was nothing more attractive at this stage of an investigation than a bad hat. It gave you something to follow up, a mote in the otherwise clear eye of all the unknowns.
‘Reading’s a long way,’ Connolly said. ‘What was Mike Carmichael doing over this way?’
‘Well, he had this motorbike,’ Mrs Wilding said, drying her eyes again. ‘He could get about on that all right.’
‘What I meant was, how did Zellah come to meet him?’
‘Oh, I see. Well, he had some friends who shared a house in Notting Hill, and one of them was Chloë Paulson’s brother. That time he brought Zellah home, they’d all been out together, a whole crowd of boys and girls. You know how they do. It wasn’t that way when I was young,’ she added in a complaining voice. ‘You went out in couples, or maybe a foursome, none of this all hanging around together in a gang. It just makes it harder to know what’s going on, to my mind. I mean, it isn’t natural for boys and girls to be friends like that, is it? They’re supposed to date and fall in love. You don’t marry someone you’re friendly with. But I suppose it was better for Zellah, in a way, because her father would only let her go out in a crowd, so she wouldn’t have met any boys at all otherwise.’
‘Did she see this boy more than once?’
‘No, Daddy forbade it. But she seemed to go off him anyway. She didn’t mention him ever again.’
If it was me, Connolly thought, I wouldn’t have mentioned him, even if I was seeing him. A girl had to learn to manipulate in order to get her way. Anyway, from what the doc said it was obvious that Miss Zellah had been getting the ride off some fella or other, whatever her parents thought. ‘Do you think you could find me that photograph now?’ she said. She would have a quick look round the bedroom while the oul’ one was getting it; see if there was a diary or any letters.
‘What a life,’ Atherton said, when they had given Slider their various accounts. ‘I wouldn’t blame her for cutting a rip with biker boy.’
‘It’s the devil when parents try to relive their lives through their children,’ Slider mused. ‘There’s father wanting her to be an academic success and probably end up with her own business, while mother just wants to relive her youth and beauty vicariously, and probably hopes her daughter will be a model and marry a film star. Impossible expectations.’
‘And what about being forbidden to go out with boys?’ Connolly said indignantly. ‘Janey Mac, she was seventeen.’
‘Right,’ Atherton said. ‘You can’t keep ’em down on the farm after they’ve seen Paree. What would you have done?’ he asked Connolly.
‘Pretend to go along with it and run mad behind their backs,’ Connolly answered. ‘If they want to carry on like Ignatius Loyola, what can they expect?’
‘Tyrants make liars,’ Atherton said.
‘Well, that’s one way to look at it,’ Slider said, from the point of view of a father. ‘But was that what Zellah was doing?’
‘She was out on the Scrubs late at night when she should have been somewhere else,’ Connolly pointed out.
‘We know she was rebelling,’ Atherton said, ‘because of what Freddie Cameron said about her having had a lot of sex. And I must say she must have had considerable moxie to defy her dad like that. I wouldn’t like to try it.’
‘Moxie?’ Slider queried vaguely, out of a train of thought.
‘Balls. Spunk. Chutzpah.’
‘I know what it means. I just don’t know why you’re using it.’
‘I’m a Red Sox fan.’
‘You are not.’ Slider shook his head. ‘Try to be duller,’ he advised.
‘I can’t help it. I spent my formative years at the pictures.’
Connolly suppressed a grin. This was why she wanted to get into the CID. They were all pure mad in the Department. ‘Sir,’ she said to Slider, ‘I’ve been thinking about the clothes she was wearing.’
‘Yes, I’ve been wondering about that too,’ Slider said. ‘I wouldn’t have thought her parents – her father, anyway – would have let her go out showing that much flesh.’
‘No, sir. That’s what I thought. And I had a good oul’ look in her wardrobe while I was in her bedroom, and there’s nothing else like that in there. It’s all Sunday School stuff, skirts and ganzies your mammy would buy you. I’m wondering if she borrowed those clothes from her friend.’
‘Sophy Whatsit? It’s a thought. And if she did, then Sophy must have been in on the whole thing,’ Slider said. ‘Which would mean she’d know who it was Zellah was seeing that night.’
‘It’s obvious the Sophy thing was a front,’ Atherton said. ‘Either for some kind of group outing to a place the Wildings wouldn’t approve of, or for Zellah to go out with a person ditto ditto.’
‘That Mike Carmichael sounds the lad,’ Connolly said. ‘The Woodley South’s a total kip. Drugs, stolen cars, smuggled fags and booze. Unemployment about ninety-eight per cent. What’s a skanger from a place like that doing, hanging around the likes of Zellah Wilding?’
‘Yes,’ said Slider. ‘I do wonder what the connection with the smart girls is. How did he know Sophy Whatsit’s brother and his friends?’
‘Oh, I think we can all guess that,’ Atherton said wryly. ‘What do larging-it youngsters do with their money these days?’
‘We can all guess,’ Slider said, ‘but I’d prefer to know.’
‘I take it an early interview with
biker boy is a priority,’ Atherton said. ‘The hood from the ’hood.’
‘First of all,’ Slider went on, ‘we need to speak to this Sophy girl. She may be the one person who knows where Zellah was going and with whom.’
‘Do you want me to do it?’ Atherton said.
‘No, I’ll go myself,’ Slider said, stretching his shoulders. ‘I need to move. I’ll take Hart with me. They’ll think she’s cool.’
‘I’m cool,’ Atherton protested. Connolly made a snorting noise, and he turned on her sharply to find her face rigidly controlled. ‘What?’
‘Nothing, sir,’ she said.
‘I think PC Connolly thinks you’re more hip than cool,’ Slider explained kindly. ‘Anyway, you two have got your notes to write up. Get the photograph copied and circulated. Oh, and you’d better arrange for the Wildings to identify the body. Get them to come in, and take their statements down, such as they are.’
‘We can send someone there for that,’ Atherton said.
‘It’ll do them good to get out of the house,’ Slider said, and Connolly gave him a pleased look for having thought of it. ‘What did you think of the father?’
‘Obsessive,’ Atherton said. ‘Transferred all his love to his little princess when he realized he’d married a pudding.’
‘Right,’ said Slider. ‘On the principle that it’s always the person nearest what dunnit, get him to write down where he was and what he was doing.’
‘That poor man?’ Connolly protested. ‘He was heartbroken!’
‘For elimination purposes,’ Slider said. ‘Always bread and butter first, before you can have any cake.’
Mad as bicycles, Connolly thought admiringly.
FOUR
Bedlam Sans Mercy
‘So, what’s the griff with this one, guv?’ Hart asked, deeply gratified to have been chosen to accompany the boss. She glanced sideways at his profile as he drove. He still gave her a flutter, though she accepted he was off limits now. She liked older men, and there was just something about him . . . Sexy, she thought with an inward, wistful sigh. Definitely a hottie.
‘That’s what we’re going to find out,’ he said.
‘No, but I mean did she go putting herself about to get one over her dad, and get picked up by a low-life, raped and murdered?’
‘She wasn’t raped.’
‘Oh, yeah, I was forgetting.’ She frowned. ‘Well, how does that work, then?’
‘It complicates things,’ Slider admitted.
‘Why strangle the cow when you’ve drunk the milk?’
‘What a dainty turn of phrase you have. Anyway, it’s useless to speculate with so few facts.’
‘Yeah, but it passes the time.’ He didn’t look at her, but she saw his lips twitch in response.
The house was big, handsome, well proportioned; probably built in the 1820s, Slider thought, of solid London stock and slate, with the tall sash windows beloved of people who had enough servants to clean them. There were wide steps up to the front door over a semi-basement, and what had been a large front garden was now mostly gravelled parking, but with a shrubbery softening the edges, and a couple of lofty ancient trees for beauty. Parked on the gravel were a black sports-model Golf, a red Mazda X5 and a big Mercedes station wagon.
‘Bet the Golf’s the birthday present,’ Hart said as they pulled in alongside. ‘Lucky girl.’ She climbed out and looked up at the house. ‘Well, obviously they’ve got money, a house this big in this part of the world.’
Slider got out at the other side and pointed upwards. ‘That’s the other side of the coin,’ he said, as a 747 roared slowly over on its way to Heathrow. ‘All these lovely houses are under the flight path.’
Hart shrugged. ‘Wouldn’t bother me. I grew up with two bruvvers who loved reggae. A jumbo’s a breeze compared to that.’
They walked up the steps. There was the sound of slamming music from somewhere inside. Slider rang the bell, waited a moment, and rang it again. A dog’s barking came closer, retreated, advanced again until it was just behind the door. Slider rang again, then knocked for good measure, and the dog exploded with urgency.
At last there was movement inside, and the door was opened by a girl with wet eyelashes and a towel wrapped in a turban round her head. Beside her a golden retriever was woofing madly. Behind her an elderly mongrel of largely Labrador descent was scenting the air and wagging its tail, and further back still a grey whippet and a black toy poodle lurked, poised for flight. The music sounded louder now, but was still distant, upstairs somewhere.
‘I’m sorry, did you ring more than once?’ she said with the instant, confiding friendliness that Slider thought her generation’s nicest trait. ‘I was washing my hair, I couldn’t hear for the water.’
‘Are you Sophy Cooper-Hutchinson?’
‘Good God, no!’ she said, as if it was out of the question. ‘She’s my little sister.’
‘You must be Abigail, then,’ Slider said, produced his brief, and introduced himself and Hart.
Abigail looked alarmed. ‘Oh God, what’s she done now? If she’s got into trouble my parents will kill me. But I don’t see how I’m supposed to control her,’ she complained, her pretty face turning sulky. ‘She never listens to me. I’ve got a life of my own, anyway. Why should I have to hang around taking care of her like a nanny? It’s not fair. What’s she done, anyway?’
‘Nothing, as far as I know,’ Slider said. ‘She isn’t in trouble. We just want to ask her a few questions.’
‘God, that sounds ominous! That’s what they say on the TV, and the next thing there’s a chase and a gun battle.’
‘Well, this is real life, and believe me, it’s nuffing like TV,’ Hart said. ‘Is that her upstairs? Can we go up, then?’
‘I suppose so,’ Abigail said with a shrug, stepping back and abandoning all responsibility.
The retriever had long exchanged barking for sniffing Slider’s trousers with every intention of becoming his lifelong companion, and it frisked beside him as he stepped in. He had that effect on dogs, Hart noted.
‘Second floor, on the left,’ Abigail said. ‘Follow the noise. She’s supposed to be doing her practice but I wouldn’t bet on that.’
Slider climbed the stairs with the dogs surging about him, perhaps in the hope that he could be persuaded to take them out for a walk. Hart followed. The music grew louder, until the banisters trembled. At a turn of the stairs, when Slider was facing her for a moment, he raised his eyebrow enquiringly and she said, ‘It’s Foxxy Roxx. Wiv two exes.’
‘Where?’
‘Everywhere. It’s metal.’
‘Heavy metal?’ he said, to show he knew what she was talking about.
‘No, it’s more like Glam Metal,’ Hart said. ‘Still a bit crusty for a kid, though.’
‘You think she ought to be listening to Perry Como?’
She looked blank for a beat, and then said helpfully, ‘There’s a band called Epic Coma, but they’re more Gothic.’
‘How do you know all this metal stuff?’
‘Me bruvvers grew out of reggae.’
On the second floor the door to the left was open. Through it the music pounded, and they could see a slim young girl dancing about. She was wearing a black leotard and pink footless tights and a grey sweatband round her head, but above it her short coal-black hair stood up in waxed spikes, and she wore heavy black make-up about the eyes and near-purple lipstick. There was a heap of clothes on the bed, and her dance, all in time to the music, involved picking up garments, taking them to a full-length cheval mirror to hold them up against herself, and rejecting them on to a pile on a chair. She moved very well, Slider thought, and had obviously trained in dance, but ballet practice this was not. The contrast between the girlish occupation and the savage music was slightly disturbing.
The room was a cornucopia of possessions, electronic goods, sports equipment, hobby paraphernalia – evidence of past fads requiring considerable financial investment, before int
erest waned and a newer, shinier preoccupation took over. There were outgrown toys, ornaments, souvenirs, and clothes not only on the bed and chair but bulging out of the wardrobe and hanging on the back of the door. William Whiteley opened a department store with less stock, Slider thought.
He banged on the door, but she didn’t hear him through the music, which was beginning to give him a neck ache. But the dogs had surged past him and attracted her attention, and then she caught sight of him in the mirror and whipped round so hard it was practically a fouetté en tournant. In a gesture of unexpected modesty she clutched the garment she was holding to her front, high up at the neck. Her lips moved to say who are you, but their sound could not compete with Foxxy Roxx.
Slider held up his badge while Hart beside him lifted her hands in a placating, we-won’t-harm-you gesture, and then pointed to the CD player that was pumping out the decibels. The girl went to it crabwise, keeping her eyes on the intruders, and a moment later a blissful silence fell, surprising the dogs so much that one of them barked involuntarily, and then looked embarrassed.
‘Sophy Cooper-Hutchinson?’ Slider said with comfortable formality. ‘I’m sorry if we startled you. Your sister let us in and told us to come up. I’m Detective Inspector Slider from Shepherd’s Bush police station, and this is Detective Constable Hart.’
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