‘This used to be called the Orchard Estate when it was first built,’ McLaren said. ‘Bloke in the canteen told me it was all farmland, orchards and stuff, up to the sixties. So they gave all the roads farmy names. Gawd ’elp us.’
Slider had noticed. Apart from Applelea they had passed High Garth, Hay Wain, Cherry Orchard Lane, Plum Tree Lane, Tithe Road, Orchard View, and Blossom View. A rural paradise, care of central government post-war planning. As McLaren so aptly observed, Gawd ’elp us.
Number fourteen was just as tatty and desolate as its neighbours, but it was obviously inhabited: all its windows still had their glass and all were curtained. The curtains in the downstairs window were drawn shut, rough-looking red cloth hanging slightly askew, though the upstairs ones were open. There was a sheet of hardboard nailed over the glass portion of the front door, and the house number was missing, though a paler outline in the dirty paint showed where it had been. They walked cautiously up the path, and when they neared the house they saw that the front door, though pulled to, was not completely shut. The wood of the frame, however, was not splintered. It had not been jemmied or kicked in: it must either have been left open deliberately, or had been pushed carelessly by the last person in or out, who had not checked that it had latched.
Slider pushed it cautiously, and it swung back. A narrow, dark hall led straight back to a kitchen, whose open door revealed a scene of dirty crockery, fast-food boxes, and general rubbish in greater amount than you would have thought possible in a room that small. The stairs, narrow and steep, were to the left. To the right was the single downstairs room, whose door was slightly ajar, enough to see it was dark inside, the curtains closed and no light on. Pop music was sounding in there at medium volume from a radio station. The carpet underfoot and up the stairs was filthy with footmarks and spillings, and in the air was a smell of dirt, feet, fat, hashish and rancid garbage.
That living-room door had the look of a trap to Slider. Had they seen him coming, and were luring him in? But he thought of Lilly the Pink and her half-age shack-up. People like that rarely showed cunning. They just reacted belatedly when something came at them. A movement from the kitchen caught his eye and he could tell from the sharpness of the chill down his neck how tense he was. A rat was sitting on top of the heap of plates and cardboard boxes on the draining board, working on a Kentucky Fried Chicken bone. Slider forced his shoulders to relax. He wished the rat no ill. Anyway, it was the only one in this house who was doing any clearing up.
There had been no sound or movement anywhere, so indicating for Fathom to stay by the door, in case there was anyone upstairs, and for McLaren to keep close, he pushed the living-room door all the way open. Even in the dim red light filtering through the curtains he could see well enough to pick out a scattering of cheap furniture, a television – turned off – and a sofa bed in the pulled-out position taking up most of the room. The floor and other surfaces were a mess of clothes, fast-food boxes, bottles, glasses, empty beer cans, overflowing ashtrays, and general litter. The radio was sitting in the hearth of the boarded-up fireplace. The smell in this room was intensified by the addition of bodies, sweat and stale cigarette smoke.
And two people were asleep in the bed, tumbled together with a grubby sheet to cover their modesty. One of them was snoring throatily, interspersed with an occasional wet gulping snort, like a pig enjoying apples.
Slider positioned his men, stepped to the window and pulled the curtains. He half expected an explosion of movement from the bed, but all that happened was that the tangled heap stirred and grunted, and after a moment the male half of it sat up blearily, rubbing its head with one hand and scratching under the sheet with the other.
‘Wassappenin?’ It rubbed its eyes, and then registered Slider and McLaren. ‘Wassgoinon? Who the fuck are you?’ Belated alarm widened the eyes, and he began fumbling about under the pillow.
Slider suspected a weapon under there, and said sternly, ‘Stay still. We’re the police. We just want to ask you a few questions.’ He went on fumbling. ‘Don’t do it, son. You’re not in any trouble – yet. Let’s keep it that way.’
But it was cigarettes that came out. At the same time, the female half mumbled itself awake – or half awake, at any rate. She turned over on to her back, frowning against the light, smacked her lips and groaned. ‘Whafuck’s going on? Put the light out.’
‘Wake up, Lil,’ the man said urgently, jabbing her ungently. He was sitting up, covered from the waist down – always thankful for small mercies, Slider thought – and from the undeveloped nature of his bare chest he looked to be no more than twenty. He was of West Indian stock, with longish hair, tattoos on his upper arms – a spider in its web on the right and a ghost on the left – and rings through both eyebrows and the left nostril.
Lilly dragged her eyes open, and then sat up slowly, instinctively pulling the sheet up with her to cover her breasts. She looked at Slider carefully, and then yawned widely. The yawn turned into a prolonged and hacking cough, which nearly dislodged the sheet, after which she wiped her nose on her fingers, her fingers on the bed, and said, ‘Can’t you fuckers leave me alone?’
‘That’s enough of that language,’ McLaren said, and threw her a T-shirt from the floor at his feet. ‘Put that on. We just want to talk to you.’
She inspected him, smiled unpleasantly, picked up the T-shirt and deliberately dropped the sheet so that they had a brief introduction to her womanly frame before it disappeared under the soiled cotton.
The youth, to do him credit, looked angry with her and muttered, ‘For fuck’s sake, Lil, it’s the filth.’
‘Well, they can get the fuck out of my house,’ Lilly said, feeling around in the bed. ‘Gimme a fag, Len, for fuck’s sake.’
‘I said that’s enough of that,’ McLaren said.
‘Oh, get lost,’ she said with weary irritability, taking a cigarette from Lennie and sucking at the light he offered. She looked, Slider thought, anything between fifty and sixty, but he knew how drugs aged people, so she was probably only in her early forties. Her face was sickly pale, with brown circles under her eyes and an uncomely spot coming up on her chin, and her hair was limp and greasy, flat to her skull and straggling over her shoulders. But she might once have been good looking: she had a strongly sculpted mouth (though it was turned down disagreeably now), a determined chin and a straight nose. But just now, sucking on the cigarette in between phlegmy coughs, she looked like an old bag.
Slider showed his badge and told them who he was. ‘I’m looking for Mike Carmichael,’ he said.
Lennie looked cautiously at Lilly, who said, ‘I don’t know any Mike. So you can piss off out of my house. What’s he want?’ She directed her verbal energy suddenly towards Fathom, who had appeared in the doorway, unable to bear not seeing. He didn’t speak, and she stitched an appalling smile on and said, ‘You got any change, love? I’m short me rent. Come on, love, a coupla quid. Give us twenty and I’ll give you a blow job.’
Fathom looked taken aback and she went into raucous laughter. ‘Your face!’
Lennie looked embarrassed and said, ‘Can it, Lilly, for fuck’s sake. It’s the police.’
‘Oh, don’t you think coppers do it? I’ve had plenty of them in the past, I can tell you. You want names?’ She leered at Slider.
‘Just tell us where Mike is, and we’ll leave you in peace.’
‘I don’t know any Mike. So get out.’
‘Your son, Mike. Michael Carmichael.’ Slider had seen the candle, spoon and glass straw on the mantelpiece, the tackle for chasing the dragon, which was evidence enough to arrest the pair of them – not that he wanted to. He gestured to McLaren to pick up the piece of silver foil from the floor – obviously the wrap the H had come in. McLaren picked it up and showed it to them.
‘There’ll be enough traces on this to show what was in it,’ he said. ‘We’ve got a field test kit in the car. Possession of scag is a serious offence – and what’ll we find if we search a bit m
ore?’
It was enough to alarm Lennie. ‘Mike’s not here,’ he blurted.
‘Shut your mouth, you stupid little shit,’ Lilly growled at him.
‘Look, it’s her, not me. I don’t do scag.’
‘I’ll kill you, you fucking rat!’
‘You let me go, and I’ll tell you.’
‘Tell me, then,’ Slider said calmly. ‘Where can we find Michael Carmichael?’
Lilly flung herself at her lover with an incoherent scream, and Fathom leapt into action, throwing himself at her and grabbing her arms. McLaren had to go to help him, while Slider gestured Lennie back as he jumped out of bed, and warned him not to try to leg it. Fathom and McLaren were at a disadvantage with Lilly, since they had to fight fair, try not to hurt her, and keep from being bitten or scratched – God knew how toxic she was. McLaren could have felled her with a tap to the chin, but they weren’t allowed to do that. After a bit she got tired of the business and stopped struggling, otherwise they could have been fighting for hours. She slumped back on the bed, coughing. They kept hold of her arms, panting, but she said, ‘Let me go. I gotta find my fag, before the bed goes up.’ And when they let her go, she gave herself to rummaging about for the lit cigarette that had fallen among the sheets in the struggle.
Slider said, ‘All right, Lennie. Where’s Mike?’
In the interval, the naked youth had put on a pair of sweat pants from the floor, and now was standing with his arms wrapped round his chest, watching, his eyes flitting about as if calculating the odds of escape.
‘You’ll let me go?’ he said now.
‘I promise.’
‘Well, he ain’t here. He don’t live here no more. He’s got these friends up town – rich kids. He hangs about with them now. We’re not good enough for him,’ he added scathingly.
‘Where does he live?’
‘I don’t know the address. It’s in Notting Hill, that’s all I know. He wouldn’t tell me.’
‘Shut your face, you little shit!’ Lilly said angrily. ‘I’m warning you.’
He looked at her with a wrench of contempt. ‘I’ve had it with you, you rotten slag. You’re always calling me names. I don’t owe you nothing.’ He looked at Slider. ‘Mike’s got it good up there, selling coke to these rich kids for big money. Well, why wouldn’t he? Better than knocking stuff out round here for half the price. He doesn’t like me and I don’t like him. You should hear what he said about me and Lilly. He thinks he’s too good for the likes of us now. Well, stuff him! And stuff you, Lilly! You and your skanky son. I’m not getting in trouble for either of you.’
Lilly screamed at him incoherently, and Fathom and McLaren had to restrain her again, while Slider was having to persuade Lennie not to deprive them of his company just yet, which was how he excused himself afterwards for not having heard anything from outside. But suddenly all the ruckus stopped as if by magic. Someone had appeared in the doorway. Slider turned to see a young man in leather jacket and jeans standing there.
Lilly saw him too, stopped writhing, and cried urgently, ‘Mikey, have you got the stuff? Have you got the shit for me, Mikey?’
The man disappeared with amazing speed. Slider flung himself after him, feeling, rather than seeing, McLaren coming behind.
But the fleeing man had jumped astride a powerful motorbike parked at the kerb. Because the engine was hot, it caught at once. Slider only managed to touch a sleeve with fingertips as he swerved out of reach. McLaren passed him running as the bike roared up the road, but he stopped after a few yards, seeing it was hopeless. The bike turned the corner and was out of sight.
Slider ran to the car. There wasn’t the faintest chance of catching him with that sort of start, but the gesture had to be made. The others piled in, and he drove off with a squeal of rubber.
‘Anyone get the number?’ McLaren said.
No one had.
‘It was a Harley Davidson,’ Fathom said.
‘Yeah, we got that,’ McLaren said witheringly.
‘But he must be making big money, to have a bike like that,’ Fathom offered.
‘Yeah,’ said McLaren, ‘and better than that, we know we’re on to something, or else why did he run?’
SIX
One Ring Leads to a Mother
Sergeant ‘Nutty’ Nicholls, the handsome, polyphiloprogenitive Scot from the far north-west, took the trouble to come upstairs to Slider’s office from the front desk to report that there was a woman waiting to see him. ‘She says she’s your victim’s headmistress.’
‘Oh? Well, I’d better see her. She might have an insight to share. What’s she like?’
‘Posh. I doubt she’s ever seen the inside of a polis station before. She spoke to Harris ve-ry slo-owly to be sure the puir heathen understood what she was saying.’
‘We’d better not slap her in an interview room, then,’ Slider said. ‘Can you get someone to wheel her up here?’
‘My thought exactly. She’s the sort that’d tell on ye in a minute. Years of working with children warps your mind. It’s a bad business, this, Bill,’ he went on, suddenly serious. ‘With six girls of my own, I hate it like fire. Any leads yet?’
‘Not really. But we’ve got everyone out asking questions, and someone will have seen something. They always do.’
‘Aye. Well,’ he sighed, ‘not to be suggesting anything, but I don’t know if you knew that Ronnie Oates is back in circulation.’
‘The Acton Strangler?’ Slider said, and then distracted himself. ‘I can’t believe we’ve got a serial killer called Oates.’
‘God has a strange sense of humour,’ Nicholls acknowledged. ‘But I’d remind ye that he’s never killed anyone.’
‘I beg his pardon,’ Slider said. Oates had indecently assaulted five women, and although the assaults themselves had been fairly minor, he had a proclivity for choking his sexual partners during the act, which had eventually got him into trouble when one of them complained. It had also finally brought him to the notice of the press, who could not resist giving him the sobriquet. ‘What did he get last time?’
‘Four years. He was a good boy and got out after eighteen months. That was a couple of months ago, and Arthur told me when we swapped over that he’s been seen around East Acton again, where his mother lives.’
‘Arthur’ was Paxman, the sergeant on the night relief.
‘How come he always knows everything?’ Slider complained.
‘People tell him things. He’s like the river that king in the legend stuck his head in, to whisper his secret. He flows.’ Nicholls demonstrated a beautiful smoothness with one hand. ‘Men may come and men may go but he goes on for ever.’
‘Well, thanks for telling me, anyway,’ Slider said. ‘Oates liked to use the women’s own tights, didn’t he?’
‘That’s why I thought you ought to know right away,’ said Nicholls. ‘The trouble with people like him is that they escalate. The sin loses its edge so they have to sin a bit harder to get the same thrill. And he’s just stupid enough to want to earn his sobriquet. He may have finally crossed the line, Bill.’
‘Yes,’ said Slider. It was a dismal prospect.
‘I’ll wheel up your woman,’ Nutty said. He got to the door and turned back to say, ‘His ma used to tie him up when he was bad, you know – Oates. When he was a wean. Used to tie him to the banisters by the neck so he wouldn’t struggle. Used to use a pair of her old tights.’ He shook his head. ‘The things we do to our children.’
The woman moved so briskly across the room that Slider only just had time to get to his feet before she thrust her hand out to be shaken.
‘Elizabeth Finch-Dutton, head teacher of St Margaret’s,’ she said crisply. ‘Zellah Wilding’s head teacher. They tell me you are the officer in charge.’
He’d forgotten they didn’t call themselves masters and mistresses any more. ‘Detective Inspector Slider,’ he said. Despite the warm day, her hand was cold and dry, and the grip was hard and brief, like a politic
ian’s, and quickly withdrawn.
‘I heard the dreadful news this morning, on the radio. I’m so shocked I can hardly believe it. Is it true the poor child was murdered?’
‘I’m afraid so.’
‘But – how? I mean, what—?’
‘I’m afraid I can’t go into any of the details,’ Slider said.
She pulled herself together. ‘Of course. I understand. It’s just so incomprehensible. In the absence of information the imagination tends to run wild.’
Let it run, said Slider’s sturdy silence.
‘I thought I’d better come here and see if there was anything I can do,’ she said meekly. ‘It’s good of you to see me, when you must be so busy. But if I can help in any way, I will gladly rally any forces at my command to find out who did this dreadful thing.’
Slider gestured to her to sit. She was tall and thin, in her late fifties probably, with cropped grey hair, large glasses and a professional smile – a ritual baring of teeth. It seemed to be coming and going rather randomly, as if she kept finding herself doing it automatically and then realizing it wasn’t appropriate to the occasion. She was not as much in control of herself as she wanted to appear, and Slider liked her the better for it.
‘Any background information you can give me?’ he suggested. ‘What was your impression of Zellah?’
‘She was one of our stars. A very able girl. She was a prefect, you know, and she was under consideration for Head Girl next year. Exemplary behaviour and academic prowess. Such a good example to the lower forms. We all thought a great deal of her.’ Her accent was crisp and her enunciation perfect, and she spoke with an emphasis carefully placed on one word in each phrase – a learned trick of rhetoric, presumably, but which made her sound authoritative. What she said would be the last word on any subject. ‘It’s so terrible to think of all that potential cut short in this senseless manner. She was the sort of girl we all long for but rarely get through our hands: a girl with a real academic intellect. Her A levels were sciences, you know.’
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