‘And we ought to make questioning the fairground people a priority.’
‘You think someone there might be involved?’
‘It’s not that; it’s the question of why she was on the Scrubs at all. It’s only a mile across the grass from the fair to where she was found. Maybe she was at the fair that evening, and maybe someone saw her, that’s all.’
‘All right, go for it. Anything else?’
Slider sighed. ‘I think we have to interview her school friends and find out if she said anything to any of them about a new boyfriend, or about her plans for that weekend.’
Porson eyed him sympathetically. Interviewing young girls was nobody’s favourite job. Boys were much easier. They gave you lip but, as with horses, after the wild bucking generally came submission. But with girls you never got to the end of the attitude, and if you tried to press them they took refuge in tears, hysteria or, worst case, accusations of mental or physical assault.
‘Well, don’t get hung up about it. It’s a rotten job but somebody’s got to do it. Just make sure you don’t get left alone with any of ’em. I can do without any of my officers being suspended on the say-so of some little madam with more mummy than sense.’
FIVE
All Creatures Grunt and Smell
It was late when Slider got home, but Joanna was there to greet him with a kiss, and there was a welcome fragrance of cooking in the air. He understood completely why married men were said to live longer than single ones.
‘I bet you haven’t eaten all day,’ she said. ‘I made a big soup. It’s all hot and ready, on the table as soon as you like.’
He only had to shed his jacket and tie and wash his hands. Joanna’s soups were a meal in themselves, so packed with good things you practically needed a knife and fork to eat them. After a large bowlful, accompanied by the heel end of a chunky loaf (she always saved the heels for him, though he suspected she liked them herself – she took wifehood very seriously, he realized humbly), he was feeling revived enough to pay proper attention to a morsel of cheese, with which she thoughtfully put out a glass of Bruichladdich. He sighed and looked at her. ‘I’d marry you if you weren’t a married woman.’
She batted her eyelashes. ‘I love you, too. So, how’s it going?’
‘Too early to say. Thousands of canvasses to go through, lots of sightings of young people and young couples in and around the area but nothing stands out yet. One obvious suspect but only because he’s a bad hat and he knew her. We’ve nothing on him.’
‘Oh, well that all sounds wonderfully positive,’ she said. ‘You look bushed. Another Brutal Laddie?’
‘Just a tiny one. Have one with me?’
‘Just a tiny one.’
‘I interviewed the victim’s best friend today,’ he said while she poured. ‘Or I should say “mate”. God, it was depressing. Girl from a well-to-do middle-class family, attending a fee-paying school, and she talks and behaves like a trollop. It made me think of Kate. I don’t want her becoming like that, but I suspect there’s nothing anyone can do to prevent it. I don’t suppose the Cooper-Hutchinsons planned their Sophy to be like that, but the culture is stronger than the people.’
‘Don’t be silly – the culture is the people,’ she said briskly. ‘Mostly people are too indolent. It’s a huge effort to take a stand over things, and they can’t be bothered. They’d sooner be friends with their children than try to discipline them.’
‘Tough talk.’ Slider smiled wearily at her. ‘I can’t even influence Kate now, let alone discipline her. We really have to find somewhere with another bedroom, so I can have them to stay. I can’t be a part of her life when I can only see her for a couple of hours at an amusement park like a Divorce Dad. Did you have any luck today?’
‘Oh, I saw the details of a lot of properties, but nothing we can afford. One estate agent recommended looking at the auction sites. There are a lot of repossessed properties coming on at the moment, at rock-bottom prices. I’ve got the details of a couple of sites. I’ll have a go at it tomorrow when the baby’s napping.’
‘Talking of the baby, have you found a sitter for Thursday night?’
‘I asked Emily, and she jumped at it. You’d think I was doing her the favour.’
‘Oh good! Funny Atherton didn’t say anything to me.’
‘She probably hasn’t spoken to him, any more than I spoke to you,’ she pointed out kindly. ‘She’s thrilled about it, bless her. Says she’s never looked after a baby before, and can’t wait.’
Slider stirred. ‘Never looked after a baby? Is that a good idea, then?’
‘Good practice for her, for when she and Jim get at it.’
‘I think they’re at it already.’
‘Parenthood, rather than mere vigorous bonking.’
‘But I meant, is it a good idea for the baby?’
‘Oh, what could go wrong?’ she said. ‘Worst case he howls all evening, which won’t hurt him, and will prepare her for the realities of life.’
He smiled. ‘I love your cavalier attitude to our only offspring.’
‘You’re a worrier. Probably comes from being an only child. When you come from a big family like me, you’re expected to get on with it and survive. My older sisters used to use me for netball practice,’ she boasted largely. ‘Never did me any harm.’
‘I used to sit in for the smoking beagles for pocket money,’ he capped her.
She smiled, glad to see he had relaxed: that tense, grey look had gone out of his face. ‘I’m ready for bed,’ she said. ‘How do you feel about sleeping with a married woman?’
He pretended to consider. ‘Sounds good to me. Have you got her number?’
‘I’ve got your number, you Lothario. Leave the dishes,’ she said, standing up. ‘I’ll clear it in the morning. I want my cot.’
He caught her up, slid an arm round her waist, and nibbled her neck. ‘How do you feel about making love with a married man?’
‘As long as you don’t wake up my baby.’
They headed for the bedroom, where the bedside lamp was already on to guide them home. ‘I can’t help feeling,’ he said, ‘that learning how to do it really quietly has got to come in handy some time.’
Detective Inspector Douglas ‘call me Duggie’ Sweyback of Woodley Green nick (which had responsibility for the Woodley South Estate) had trotted out the tea and biscuits – custard cream, coconut ring and Abbey Crunch – as soon as Slider arrived, and was plainly spoiling for a chat, so it was some time before Slider was able to get down to the matter in hand.
Sweyback’s name owed more to Nabisco than Quasimodo, as he had revealed during an etymological discussion at a junket they had both attended: in fact, he was as tall and straight as a reasonable man needed to be, taller and more heavily built than Slider, only somewhat under-endowed in the follicular department – something that was often on his mind. Slider had more than once heard his treatise on Why Bald Men Don’t Get On (subheading No Bald Man Will Ever Be Prime Minister Again). Sweyback regarded Slider as a bit of a soul mate, largely because it was unusual for an older copper to remain at station level rather than levitating to the SOs, or copping out to the cushy desk jobs. When they turned up at the same do, as happened from time to time, Sweyback would hasten to Slider’s side with the glad eagerness of a German tourist spotting a sausage, and would bend his ear about the sheer awfulness of the Job these days.
The last such occasion had been a seminar on Policing By Intelligence, and Sweyback reverted to it now, dunking his Abbey Crunch in the PG Tips, and reeling out a few things he had thought of since and hadn’t had a chance to air to anyone yet.
‘Policing By Intelligence? What we need is policing with intelligence, but fat chance of getting any of that these days! You know what the other thing means: crouching over a computer all day, never going out on the street, fiddling your figures to make it look as if you’re doing your job properly. You can’t police from a desk. But these youngsters don’t know what
I’m talking about. Do you know, I haven’t got a single person over thirty-five on my firm? I’m saddled with kids still wet behind the ears, and of course that’s the way they’ve been brought up. If it’s not in the computer they don’t want to know. You talk about knowing your own ground and knowing your own villains and working up your own snouts, and they look at you as if you were talking Chinese. You know what I mean, Bill. You’re like me. We’re from the old school. I’m a copper’s copper, and I’m not ashamed to say it, I don’t care who’s listening. But the Job’s going to the dogs. I don’t know why I carry on sometimes. They won’t let you catch criminals, and when you do catch them, the CPS won’t prosecute. Did you see that statistic in the paper the other day? Only fifteen per cent of serious crimes end up with a jail sentence.’
Slider listened patiently – he agreed with much of what Sweyback said, but hearing him saying it was a useful lesson to take on board about not sounding like a disgruntled old fart. He waited for him to run down (it was never much longer after the ‘I’m a copper’s copper’ bit) and occupied the unused part of his brain with wondering whether Duggie’s teeth were natural or not. They were so white and even, it either suggested tremendous lifelong care, or the old Royal Doulton job.
Eventually Sweyback reached the bit about having had it up to here and thinking about early retirement, and Slider was able to say, ‘Go on with you, you’ll die in the saddle. What would you do with retirement – play golf and collect beer mats? You’d miss Woodley South too much.’
‘Miss it? It’ll be the death of me!’ But it was enough of a reminder. Sweyback pulled himself together and said, ‘You’re interested in one of my home-grown villains, aren’t you? Young Michael Carmichael.’
‘Yes, what can you tell me about him? What’s he like?’
‘Cocky young devil. Too much of this.’ He flapped his hand in the ‘mouthy’ gesture. ‘Too clever for his own good, that’d be my verdict. He’s bright enough, could have made something of himself, but like all these kids he’s lazy – wants everything now. So he goes the easy route.’
‘He’s been in trouble for possession, I understand.’
‘Yes, and I’d bet my last biccie he’s dealing, but we’ve never been able to nail him for it. He can spot a ringer too easily, and he seems to know by instinct when we set up a surveillance, and just melts away. But I know for a fact he supplies his mum. Well, who else’d do it? Lilian – Lilly – Atwood’s her name. She’s a big user.’
‘Not Carmichael, then?’
‘I don’t know that she ever married Michael’s dad. He calls himself Carmichael, but anyway what’s in a name, as the Bard says. Atwood’s her third, the one after Carmichael. He’s inside now – Atwood is – doing a ten stretch for armed robbery. He was the one that was around while Michael was growing up. Her first one, O’Dade, he’s dead, killed in a pub fight donkeys’ years ago. That was about my first case when I came to Woodley Green. Old Lilly was quite a looker in those days, not that you’d know it now. She’d already started drinking too much and putting herself about when O’Dade snuffed it. Then she had this brief thing with Carmichael. Could have gone respectable at that point – he was a rep for a paper company, Bowman’s of Bracknell. But he took off when she got in the club. He’d seen the future and it didn’t work. Then not long after she had young Michael she fell in with Atwood. That was her downfall. He’s a nasty, violent piece of shit. In and out of chokey, drunk more often than not, belted her and the kids – she had three more by him, one whenever he was out. They’re in care, now. First she went on the sauce, and now she’s doing drugs. She’s hanging round the pubs most nights, bumming for drinks.’
‘Prostitution?’ Slider asked.
‘She used to make quite a living that way. When she’s not monged she’s one of those women they call lively – which means she’s noisy, got a foul mouth and she laughs a lot – but there’s a lot of men on the Woodley South don’t ask for more. But she’s not often straight enough these days to make a living at it. It’s low-level stuff now. She’ll do it down an alley or in a car for the price of a wrap. We’ve taken her up for soliciting a few times – more to move her on than in hope of a prosecution. But she’ll do it anywhere with anyone. They call her Lilly the Pink. I’ll leave you to work out why.’ He paused a beat, and added in conclusion, ‘Not too much of a surprise that young Michael went wrong.’
‘He’s still living there, is he, with his mother?’
‘You tell me,’ Sweyback said, scratching delicately at his pate. ‘I haven’t seen him about as much the last few months, but he’s still there sometimes. Bringing her the doings, I suppose. Who knows where these youngsters hang out nowadays. It’s not like when we were kids – they all sleep on each other’s floors. Anywhere’s home. To be frank with you, if he’s not on my radar I’m not worrying about him. He’s the kind of lad that, when he finally goes over, it’ll be big trouble for everyone. You know some kids just potter along being a low-grade nuisance, and in some ways they’re the worst because you can’t do much about ’em. But there’s others marked out for glory, as the Bard says, and they eventually go down hard for something really big. Carmichael’s that sort. He’s a storm brewing, he is. A disaster waiting to happen.’
‘Is he violent?’
‘Quick-tempered, I’d say. Quick to take offence. And handy with his fists. Well, with a dad like Atwood it’s not surprising. That’s all he’s known – when in doubt, lash out. He’s been in a lot of fights but we’ve never had him for anything more than that. And being a fighter’s kept him out of the gangs, which is one blessing: the only thing we’ve got over them is they’re all pig stupid, and someone like Michael could pull ’em together into a real menace, if he was interested. What’s your interest in him, by the way?’ He gave in at last to the curiosity that had been burning him for the last ten minutes.
‘We think he might have known our latest murder victim.’
‘Oh, that girl on the Scrubs? I saw that in the papers, wondered if it was yours. You fancy him for it, do you?’
‘Haven’t got that far. But he was going out with her at one time.’
‘Was he? Sinning above his station, eh?’
‘Did he have a reputation that way?’
‘What, for girls? They couldn’t get enough of him.’
‘And did he smack them around?’
‘Never had any complaints against him. Of course, he grew up seeing it at home, and often they repeat what they know. But he never had to force anyone, I can tell you that. Good looking, leery sort of lad. Always had a girl on his arm. But I’ll say this – I can see him killing a girl in a temper, if she got across him the wrong way.’
Slider nodded. ‘It looks like that sort of murder.’ Except for the tights, he thought uneasily. The tights were a real thorn in the woodpile, as Porson might say. ‘Well, thanks a lot, Duggie. You’ve given me quite a graphic picture of him. A great help.’
‘Murder, eh?’ Sweyback said thoughtfully. ‘Well, I said when he went, he’d go big. Are you going round his mum’s house?’
‘Yes, in the hope that he might be there. What does she do, by the way?’
‘Drugs? Well, she’ll do anything she can get. Dope, coke. Scag – she smokes that. Booze when she can’t get anything else. Haven’t seen the boy around lately but he comes and goes, and you might get something out of her about where to look. Probably a good time to catch her,’ he added, looking at his watch. ‘After she wakes up and before she goes looking for the next fix.’
‘Right,’ said Slider.
Sweyback rose to his feet and extended a hand like a ham for Slider to shake. ‘If I spot him around, or if one of my snouts spots him, shall I tug him for you?’
‘That would be grand,’ Slider said. ‘Thanks a lot, Duggie.’
‘No trouble. Us old ’uns have got to stick together. There aren’t many of us left.’
The Woodley South was as depressing as he had known it would be – a wastel
and of mean houses, boarded-up windows, broken fences and dying hedges, trampled front gardens full of junk, the rotting corpses of dead cars that the boy vultures were taking a long time devouring. Slider had brought Fathom and McLaren with him in case of trouble – Fathom because he was big and meaty, and McLaren because he was tough and whippy and quick in a fight. He collected them from the Woodley Green canteen where they had been wiling away the time he was with Sweyback. McLaren, at least, had understood that the purpose of the canteen stop was not to fill up the tea-tank – though he had managed to take on board a cheese roll and a massive chunk of coconut cake, and was now finishing a giant Mars Bar in the car while Slider drove.
But he said, ‘I got it from one of the woodentops in the canteen that Lilly Atwood’s shacked up with a black bloke at the moment.’
‘Don’t slobber chocolate down my neck.’
‘Sorry, guv. Anyway, this bloke’s half her age, name of Leonard McGrory, Lennie, local Reading lad, got a bit of form, TDAs, shoplifting, possession, and done time for malicious wounding – he knifed some dealer that was trying to stiff him. Got six months for that. God knows what he’s doing with Lilly the Pink, but maybe it’s got something to do with Mike Carmichael, if he is dealing.’
‘Well done,’ Slider said. ‘Always useful to know what we’re facing. What did you find out, Fathom?’
‘I didn’t know we were supposed to be finding stuff out,’ he said, a touch sulkily.
‘He spent the time smoking too much and watching me,’ McLaren said.
‘I didn’t know we were on duty,’ Fathom complained.
‘You’re always on duty,’ Slider said. ‘And if you don’t know that finding stuff out is your job, you shouldn’t be in the CID.’
‘Sorry, guv.’
‘Mind you, watching McLaren eat is always an education. But if he can eat and work, you can watch and work. You should have got chatting to someone.’
‘Lazy, that’s his problem,’ said McLaren, who had raised inertia to an art form.
If anyone was going to criticize Slider’s troops, he’d do it himself. To balance the books he said to McLaren, ‘If you applied to women the expert attention you apply to food, you’d have to become a Mormon.’ McLaren was famous in the firm for not having had a date for years. He slowed the car. ‘This is it. What a name for a road like this – Applelea.’
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