‘Joanna said you wanted to talk to me about something. I’m sorry I haven’t been able to ring you, but I’m not getting home until late and I know you go to bed about half past nine.’
‘Don’t worry about it. I’m sorry to bother you but there’s something that has to be decided, and I need your opinion first. I’ll get right to it. I’m thinking of selling this house.’
There were many things about that statement that required questions to be asked, but the one that got its nose in front was, ‘But you don’t own it. How can you sell it?’ The house he had been born and brought up in had been a tied cottage, for which his father, a farm worker, paid a peppercorn rent.
There was a soft chuckle down the line. ‘Bought it years ago. Just didn’t tell you. It was going to be a nice surprise for you when I popped off. Make up for losing me and all my helpful advice, see.’
It was one of Dad’s jokes. ‘Nothing could make up for losing you. But how come you bought it?’
‘It was when old Mr Davies died. He said in his will I was to be offered it. Afraid if the estate was sold off I’d be chucked out. He was always very good to me and your mother.’
‘Why would the estate be sold off?’ Slider couldn’t help asking, even though he didn’t want to slow his father down in getting to the point.
But Mr Slider said with commendable briefness, ‘Going through a bad patch. As it happened, they come out of it eventually, but at the time young Mr Davies was happy enough to let me have it. Nobody else would’ve wanted it, anyway. Not modern enough, and too far out of the way. Well, I had a bit put by, and there was an endowment policy come in just about then, and it was enough. He didn’t want much for it.’
‘So you’ve owned it all these years?’ He reckoned back to when the estate’s owner – the ‘old lord’ – had died. ‘That must have been twenty years ago.’
‘That’s right. Bit more, even.’
‘So why do you want to sell it now?’ A thought occurred to him. ‘You are all right? You’d tell me if you were ill or anything?’
‘No, I’m fine son. Don’t worry. But I’m getting on a bit now, and the garden’s getting a bit much for me. I don’t need that much land. It’s near-on four acres, you know.’
‘Is it?’
‘Well, I bought the fields either side of the lane. Thought at one time I might keep a few chickens, sell the eggs, but I never got round to it. I just let ’em for grazing. But you’re busy,’ he collected himself. ‘You don’t want to hear all this. Fact is, it’s a long way from anywhere and a bit isolated, so I’m thinking it’s time to be selling up. I just wanted to be sure you didn’t mind.’
‘Why should I mind?’
‘Well, it’s your childhood home. Lot of memories. You might’ve wanted it for yourself. Holiday house or some such.’
‘I’d love to live in it, but it’s far too far to commute. And it would be wonderful for a holiday cottage, but I can’t afford it. I can’t even afford a flat for Jo and me and the baby. But if you sell, where will you live? Oh damn.’ He added the last as Mackay, one of his firm, appeared in the doorway with a look of triumph on his face.
‘What’s that?’ his father said.
‘Someone wants me.’
‘That’s all right, son. I won’t keep you. Just wanted to be sure you didn’t mind if I sold it. We’ll talk about it some other time.’
‘I’ll give you a ring. As soon as I can. It won’t be tonight—’
‘Don’t you worry,’ his father said soothingly. ‘I know how it is. We’ll catch up when you’ve got this case out of the way. Don’t worry till then. Everything’s all right, I promise.’
‘All right. Thanks, Dad.’
‘God bless, son.’ And he was gone.
Mackay had been down at the Black Lion that morning, canvassing the staff, with a copy of Zellah’s photo to show round. ‘I’ve got something, guv,’ he said.
‘Somebody saw Zellah?’ Slider said.
‘Well, guv, I wasn’t that hopeful, if she was picked up from the car park and didn’t go inside. But as it happened, one of the barmen recognised her photo right away. Course, she is good-looking, the sort that turns heads,’ he added. ‘Anyway, this bloke, name of – hang on, I wrote it down.’ He pulled out his notebook and read, ‘Vedran Kosavac. He’s from Croatia.’
‘No fooling,’ Slider said drily.
‘Speaks perfect English, though,’ Mackay added. ‘Anyway, apparently he was on duty Sunday night and Zellah comes into the pub and looks around, like she’s looking for somebody. He notices her right away because she’s such a babe, but also because he thinks she looks a bit young, and the management is very hot on not allowing under-age drinking. He hates having to ask borderline cases for ID because half the time they haven’t got any, and there’s a row, and it all takes time and they’re busy anyway. I’m telling you all this,’ he added, looking at Slider, ‘to show he really did remember her.’
‘Fine, go on.’
‘Yes, guv. Well, after a bit she comes up to the bar and says excuse me, and he’s just bracing himself to ask her for ID, when she asks him where the Ladies is. So he’s all relieved. She goes off in that direction, and a few minutes later he sees her come past again and go out into the front car park. So he reckons she must have been drinking out there – because they have those bench-table things and there were a lot of customers out there that night – and someone else was buying her drinks, which was all right as far as he was concerned, as long as he didn’t have to worry about it.’
‘So did he see who she was with?’
‘No, guv, he never went out there and he never saw her again.’
‘So we’re no further on than we were,’ Slider said. ‘All we know is that she went to the Black Lion as she said she was going to. We still have to find someone who saw who she went off with.’
‘No, guv, it’s better than that,’ Mackay said. ‘They’ve got a security camera trained on the car park, and when I told the manager what we wanted to know, he took me in the tape room and we went through the videos. Luckily they keep them a week before they tape over them.’ He drew a video cassette out of his pocket and laid it on Slider’s desk with the air of a successful conjuror.
Slider’s shoulders went down and he sighed with satisfaction. ‘You weren’t kidding when you said you had something.’
‘Well, the quality’s pants, like they are, but you can see it’s Zellah all right, though it’s only her back view as she comes out of the pub. She stands around for a bit, looking round, fidgeting, like she’s nervous or impatient. And then this motorbike comes in.’
‘A motorbike,’ Slider breathed. It was almost too good to be true. A car might have been anyone, but a motorbike was almost certain to be their best candidate for suspicion.
‘With this bloke on it in a leather jacket,’ Mackay went on, ‘and it looks like jeans. Zellah runs straight over to him. And she gets on the back and he drives off with her.’
‘And can you see that it’s Carmichael? I know these tapes are poor quality, but sometimes they can be enhanced enough to—’
‘Well, guv, you can’t really see his face. He never takes his helmet off.’
Slider made a whimpering noise.
‘But you can see part of the number plate,’ Mackay said, like a comforting father. ‘We might be able to enhance that enough to get a partial reg number.’
‘All right, Mackay, thanks. You’ve done well. And at least we know she went off with a biker who we can assume for working purposes was Carmichael, even if we can’t prove it. It gives us a handle.’
‘I could go back tonight and see if any of the customers saw her getting on the bike,’ Mackay offered. ‘Someone might have seen him well enough to identify him.’
‘What beer is it there?’ Slider asked innocently.
‘Adnams, Theakston’s Black Bull, Bombardier . . .’ Mackay stopped abruptly as he realized he had given himself away.
‘I wouldn’t pu
t you through that again,’ Slider said kindly. ‘You’ve done your duty, lad. If a return visit is necessary, I’ll make someone else take the strain.’
‘Brought you a sandwich, guv,’ Hart said cheerily as she appeared in his doorway, with Atherton behind her. ‘I bet to meself you hadn’t eaten.’
‘You’re not my mother,’ Slider said repressingly.
Hart was unabashed. ‘Have you seen the time? We stopped down Mike’s and got you a sausage sandwich, wiv termata sauce, the way you like ’em. And a jam doughnut from Fraser’s on the way back. And I’ll get you a proper tea from the canteen, if you like.’
Slider weakened. ‘In a proper cup.’
‘Of course, guv,’ Hart said. ‘How long have I been here?’
‘So what’s all this excessive thoughtfulness about? Have you done something wrong? Or is it bad news?’
‘Neever. It’s a celebration. We got two sightings at the fairground. Zellah and Mike the Bike. And bloody hard work it was, too.’
‘That’s why you get the big money. Fairground people unwilling to talk?’
‘You’d get more chatter out of a depressed Trappist monk,’ Atherton said. ‘But the rifle range proprietor had a grudge against Romanies, not being one of them, and was bursting to co-operate. He ID’d our couple from the photographs, said they had a row and parted the ways.’
‘And then this old woman, with a van right at the back of the lot, said she’d seen a couple quarrelling, and the female half of it walked off across the Scrubs alone,’ Hart concluded. ‘She wouldn’t look at the photos, though.’
Slider told them Mackay’s news. ‘Can’t ID the biker, but it’s definitely Zellah, so we can assume Carmichael picked her up by prior arrangement and took her to the fairground.’
‘Where they had fun until a row blew up,’ Atherton said.
‘When she blew him off and ran off across the Scrubs,’ Hart concluded. ‘That all fits pretty nice. Then he goes and gets his bike, reckons to catch her at the other end, they have another row and he kills her.’
‘It does explain everything,’ Atherton said.
‘Except the tights,’ Slider said, getting depressed again. ‘Whoever killed her took them with him, which makes it premeditated.’
‘Well, wait a minute, guv,’ Hart said, thinking hard. ‘Maybe she carried a spare pair in her handbag.’
‘Spare pair? She wasn’t wearing any to start with.’
‘No, but they could’ve been in there from another time, and she just forgot to take ’em out.’
‘Do girls carry spare pairs of tights around with them?’ Slider asked.
‘Well, I’ve knew girls that did,’ Hart said.
‘And she helpfully told him about them, handed them over, and then stood around waiting while he got them out of the packet, to make it easier for him?’
Hart continued to look unabashed. ‘Maybe they weren’t in a packet. And he saw them when she was looking for something in her bag. I’m only saying it’s possible, that’s all.’
‘Anything’s possible,’ Slider said. The heavenly scent of his sandwich drifted up to him, reminding him it was getting cold. ‘We’ll go over all this at the meeting. You said something about tea?’
‘Righty-oh,’ Hart said obligingly.
By the time he started the meeting, Slider was feeling more positive about things, though that may just have been the essential greases reaching his system. He reported on the developments of the morning, including his own interview with Chloë Paulson.
‘So we’ve maybe got a partial reg for Carmichael’s bike, then,’ said Hollis, his other sergeant, who was office manager. ‘That’s a start.’
‘Michael Carmichael. What a name!’ Atherton interjected. ‘The things people do to their children.’
‘His mother named him,’ Slider said, ‘and I don’t think she was bursting with lucidity. Besides she never married Carmichael. He took the surname because he hated his stepfather.’
‘Then he shoulda called himself Bikemichael,’ Hart said. ‘He never had a car.’
‘Moving on,’ Slider said, ‘we also have a partial address. It ought to be easy enough to find the right place, now we know it’s over a tarot shop.’
Atherton gave him an old-fashioned look. ‘We are talking about Ladbroke Grove. Tarot and crystal shops are as plentiful as black beetles in a basement. It’ll have a Moroccan restaurant on one side, and a shop selling velvet scarves and clothes with little mirrors sewn into them on the other.’
‘I can’t see the point of tarot,’ Hart said. ‘Even if you know the future, you can’t change it.’
‘No, and it’s a strain to keep looking surprised. So, we are going after this Carmichael type, then?’
‘We’ve got him placed with the victim on the night in question, and a row between them,’ Slider said.
‘But you still don’t think he’s the murderer?’ Hart said, disappointed.
‘There are problems. The tights, for one thing. And the witness discrepancy about the time the quarrel happened.’
‘I don’t think that’s a problem. Both are correct. They just parted for a bit and then got back together for the second round,’ Atherton said.
‘We also have to take into account that Ronnie Oates has been seen back on the ground,’ Slider added.
‘What did Mr Porson say about that when you told him?’ Hart enquired. It was a rhetorical question, but Atherton answered anyway.
‘I’d take a modest bet he said, “That’s more like it.”’
‘Someone is going to have to go round to his mum’s house and see if he’s there,’ Slider said, ‘and if he isn’t, find out where he is. It needs the right handling if it’s going to get a result. His mum may not be firing on all cylinders, but she won’t want to drop her son in it. Hollis, I hate to take you away from your work, but I really think this is one for you. She’d trust you.’
‘Whatever you say, guv,’ Hollis said, looking pleased. He was tall, and so thin he had to run around in the shower to get wet. He had pale green eyes like over-cooked gooseberries, a truly terrible moustache, and a curiously strangled Mancunian accent, but somehow or other, people, particularly old people, trusted him and told him things they wouldn’t tell someone who looked more like a paid-up member of the human race. It made him an invaluable interviewer, and Slider often regretted that, by his own choice, he was always office manager, the member of the team who stayed in the CID room pulling everything together. But the fact was he was very good at that, too – and no one else liked doing it.
‘So, it’s off to Ladbroke Grove to look for Biker Boy, then,’ Atherton said, summing up, ‘and East Acton for Ronnie Oates. What else?’
‘There are all these canvasses to trawl through. Did anyone get anything interesting?’
They discussed the more hopeful sightings, though none was sufficiently definite, particularly in regard to time. Several people had mentioned a blue or black car parked under the railway bridge late at night. A couple of people had complained about a motorbike going round, making a noise, but that was a common occurrence and a common grouch. A girl had been seen walking on the Scrubs on her own, a ‘weird-looking’ man ditto, and there had been a couple snogging by the changing rooms – though that also was a frequent occurrence. It was, after all, the Sunday night before a Bank Holiday, so there were a lot of people about, and Londoners were trained not to look too hard at each other, for the sake of everyone’s privacy. The car, for instance: under the railway bridge away from the street lamps was a place where those who could do no better were accustomed to have sex in vehiculo, so in politeness nobody would have approached it too closely or looked directly at the occupants.
‘When we’ve got a possible scenario,’ Hollis said, ‘it’ll be easier to filter out what might support it and go back to them. We’re working in a vacuum at the moment. And we still haven’t found the handbag. Possibly the murderer took it with him, in which case it could be anywhere.’
&n
bsp; ‘Widen the search,’ Slider said. ‘If we find the handbag we might find her mobile phone, and that would tell us who she’d been talking to. We can’t trace it by the signal because it’s apparently switched off.’
‘Funny that, though, isn’t it, guv?’ Connolly said. ‘Why would she switch it off?’
‘Maybe the murderer did it, if he took the bag,’ Hart said.
‘Only if he was savvy enough to know it could be traced that way. And why would he want the bag anyway?’
‘I dunno. Souvenir?’ Hart said. ‘Or he was just plain daft.’
‘But if he was daft he wouldn’t know to switch the phone off.’
Slider interrupted this unfruitful speculation. ‘It’s odd the way Zellah’s headmistress and her parents thought she was an angel, while Sophy and Chloë saw her as a goer.’
‘Probably one side or the other was deluded,’ Atherton said.
‘Maybe she was somewhere between the two,’ Connolly said. ‘Neither angel nor divil. People like to exaggerate.’
‘Or maybe neither side really knew her,’ Slider said, ‘and she was something quite different from either. The other thing that’s said about her was that she was a private person. I’m getting the image of a girl who is whatever is expected of her, different things to different people. And yet,’ he checked himself, ‘she was willing to deceive her parents over the weekend with Sophy. I’d like to know whose idea that was, initially. Maybe she was a master manipulator.’
‘Well, it seems certain that she did have sex with Biker Boy,’ Atherton said, ‘so she was a goer to that extent.’
‘Maybe there were others,’ McLaren said. ‘What about this Oliver Paulson type?
‘Yes, I wouldn’t be surprised if he knew a bit more about Miss Zellah than is necessarily apparent,’ Atherton said. ‘Besides being a probable consumer of Biker Boy’s little wraps. I like snapping at the heels of rich kids who think their money entitles them to break the law. Who knows what we may find in his fabulous flat?’
‘While agreeing with you that it’s fun to taunt those better off than ourselves,’ Slider said, ‘it doesn’t necessarily get us any closer to an answer. I wish I had the slightest bit of evidence against Carmichael, other than that he knew Zellah and has a shady past.’
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