Blood Never Dies

by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles

  ‘It looks as though he’s committed suicide,’ Slider said.

  Mish, bringing over his mug of coffee, looked at him sharply. ‘Only looks like?’ she said. ‘Sit down, make yourself comfy. So, what – you think it’s somethink else?’

  ‘I can’t say at the moment,’ Slider said.

  The girls kept their home nice, or as nice as you could with a basement. There was a penetrating smell of damp, which was almost but not quite subdued by the stink of synthetic peaches from the wittily-named ‘room freshener’ plugged in to the wall. There were patches of plaster coming off in some corners and a stain the shape of Australia on the kitchen ceiling. Botev was not the sort of landlord to concern himself about such things. But everything was clean and tidy and with modern furniture from IKEA; it had a bright and homely look. There were two bedrooms, a bathroom and a good-sized kitchen, and since the bedrooms were their places of work, they did all their socializing round the kitchen table, which was where Slider now placed himself, with the girls either side of him, and a plate of biscuits in the middle.

  ‘What can you tell me about him?’

  ‘Well,’ said Mish, glancing at her friend, ‘not much. He’s not been here that long. What is it . . .?’

  ‘Coupla mumfs?’ Tash hazarded.

  ‘When was it? We see him move in, dint we, Tash?’

  ‘He come one afternoon. We was just going down the shops and we see him from the window.’

  ‘So we went out,’ Mish concluded. ‘We thought, “Hello,” we thought, “things are looking up.”’

  ‘He had on these really tight black jeans and this leather jacket . . .’

  ‘He was well fit,’ Mish confirmed. ‘Couldn’t think what he was coming to a dump like this for.’

  ‘How did you know he was moving in and not visiting?’

  ‘Well, Milan’d said he’d let the top floor. We knew it was empty ’cos ol’ Surash, what lived there before, he was a mate, and we knew he’d gone. Moved on to better things. Which is not difficult, let’s face it, after this place. Anyway, Milan was there to give the new bloke the key. We see him waiting on the steps. He come in a taxi, the new bloke. Didn’t have much with him—’

  ‘Just a suitcase,’ Tash put in. ‘And a sports bag—’

  ‘And this little telly.’

  ‘And a carrier with, like, food. And a laptop.’

  ‘He couldn’t carry ’em all. He asked the taxi driver to help, but he wouldn’t, a course.’ She made a sound of disgust.

  ‘Wouldn’t Mr Botev carry something for him?’ Slider asked, taking a custard cream. Anything to disguise the taste of the coffee.

  ‘Milan, help? He wouldn’t spit on you if you was on fire. No, he’d gone up ahead, so we went up to help. I said, “Hello, we’re Mish and Tash, we live in the basement. Can we carry something for you?” And he kinds of looks at us a bit startled, and he goes no, no, it’s all right. But I goes, “You can’t leave this stuff lying on the pavement, not if you don’t want it nicked,” so I grabs the telly and takes it up the steps.’

  ‘And he’s got the suitcase and the laptop so I grabs the carrier and the sports bag.’

  ‘But when we’re in through the front door into the hall, he gets all determined. He says thanks but he won’t trouble us to climb up all those stairs,’ Mish concluded, ‘and I could see he meant it. So I can see he’s not going to be the friendly type.’

  ‘I mean, we wasn’t exactly looking our best, was we, Michelle? We was only going down the shops.’

  ‘But he didn’t want anything to do with us, you could see that. Didn’t even tell us his name. So I thought, “Your loss mate,” and we leave it.’

  Slider pondered this and the naff hairstyle versus the good skin and teeth, and came to no conclusion. ‘I wonder what he was doing here,’ he mused aloud.

  Mish nodded. ‘You got us. We asked old Botev, but he just said he didn’t know. Didn’t care, more like. You can’t ever get an answer out of him. He wouldn’t tell you the time if you asked him.’

  ‘Did you see much of him after that?’

  They looked at each other again. ‘No, I think we only saw him once or twice after that,’ Mish said, ‘and that wasn’t to speak to. He was going out one evening just as we were coming home, and we kind of crossed on the pavement. I said hello, but he kind of turned his head away and hurried off. You know,’ she added thoughtfully, ‘I can’t help feeling I’d seen him somewhere before, but I can’t put me finger on it.’

  ‘It was only because he was fit,’ Tash said.

  ‘No, it wasn’t that,’ Mish said more surely. ‘I just felt I’d seen his face somewhere. Maybe he was famous for something.’ She looked up. ‘I don’t even know his name,’ she said in a moment of realization.

  ‘Didn’t Mr Botev tell you?’

  ‘Didn’t think to ask him. What was it, anyway?’

  ‘Botev said it was Robin Williams.’

  ‘Robbie Williams? You’re ’aving a giraffe!’ Tash exclaimed. ‘He dunt look nothing like Robbie Williams.’

  ‘Robin, not Robbie,’ Slider said distinctly. Interestingly, that name did not register with them.

  ‘No,’ Mish said slowly, ‘that doesn’t mean anything. Maybe I was just imagining it.’

  ‘Or maybe that wasn’t his real name,’ Slider suggested tentatively. ‘There was nothing in the flat to identify him.’

  They didn’t seem to find that unusual. ‘Lot of people in this house don’t want anyone to know who they are. They come and go. Last year there was this Middle Eastern bloke, we thought he was a terrorist, covered his face with a scarf when he went in or out so’s you wouldn’t see it. And before Surash on the top floor there was about six I don’t know what, Turkeys or Russians or something. We never did sort them out, did we, Tash?’

  ‘We couldn’t tell ’em apart. Coming and going. But they didn’t want to be seen either.’

  ‘Tell me about the other residents here now,’ Slider said, taking another biscuit. He’d got most of the coffee down.

  ‘Well, there’s Lauren underneath Mr Robbie Williams I Don’t Think,’ Mish began. ‘She’s a waitress up the west end. Bit of a dipstick – into all that alternative therapy bollocks, all spiritualism and reincarnation. She’s been here about – what? – a year, just over? Opposite her there’s poor old Ronnie Brown. He works up Heathrow, maint’nance. His wife chucked him out for another bloke, she’s got the house and he has to pay her and the kids alimony. He’s been here nearly a year. Don’t get caught by him or he’ll tell you his life story and start crying.’

  ‘Oh, he’s all right,’ Tash defended him. ‘It’s a bit sad, really. He loves them kids.’

  ‘Then above us there’s Nicky and Graham.’

  ‘They’re gay. Nicky’s a barman down Notting Hill. I dunno what Gray does.’

  ‘I don’t think he does work,’ Mish said. ‘He’s a lot older than Nicky. I don’t think he’s very well.’ She gave Slider a significant look. ‘They been here, what, eight, nine months. And opposite them there’s the two Pakistani boys, been here a few weeks.’ Another look. ‘I don’t know what they do. I wouldn’t ask.’

  ‘You could ask Milan,’ Natasha said, ‘but he wouldn’t tell you.’

  ‘He may have to tell us things,’ Slider said. ‘I doubt very much that he’s up to date with his tax and VAT.’

  ‘VAT!’ Michelle said derisively.

  ‘And there’s the matter of fire regs,’ Slider went on smoothly. ‘I didn’t see one single fire door in the whole house.

  Now they looked alarmed. ‘’Ere, you’re not going to make trouble and get us chucked out, are you?’ Mish cried. ‘After I made you the good coffee and everything. I thought you was our friend.’

  ‘It won’t come to that,’ Slider said. ‘The threat will be enough.’

  ‘Depends,’ Mish said thoughtfully. ‘I mean, he’s owned this house – what? – two years, and he’s been down here for a drink and a chat a few times, but I don�
�t know what he’s mixed up in. I don’t reckon much of it’s stuff he’d want to talk about.’

  ‘Well, I don’t want to either. That’s not what I’m interested in. I want to know about Robin Williams.’

  Mish narrowed her eyes. ‘Which means you don’t think it was suicide, or you’d—’ She stopped as though her switch had been thrown, staring at the wall. ‘I saw somebody,’ she said at last, starting up again. ‘I was seeing one of my customers out – must’ve been, oh, two o’clock this morning, round about then. Sunday’s a big night – lot o’ blokes like poor old Ronnie upstairs get very lonely of a Sunday. Anyway, I was knackered, and this was my last. I came out to the door with him, and he went up our steps, you know, up out the area, and when he’d gone I just stood there a bit, gettin’ a bit of fresh, and I see someone come down the steps from the street door and cross the pavement to a car parked there.’ She scanned Slider’s face for reaction, and asked, ‘Could that be something?’

  ‘Why didn’t you mention it right away?’ he asked.

  ‘Well, I never really thought about it. I mean, you don’t, do you? People are coming and going all the time. But whoever it was, they were carrying a black plastic sack full of something.’

  ‘Did you get a look at them? Was it a man or a woman?’

  She frowned in thought. ‘Hard to say. I thought it was a man – well, I thought it was one of the Paki boys, to be honest, cause it was about their size – like, slim and not very tall – but I s’pose it could have been a woman.’

  ‘It wasn’t Botev, then?’

  ‘No, I’d know his shape anywhere. This person was wearing kind of dark pants and top, and a beanie so I couldn’t see any hair, so it could have been a woman. But I just sort of thought it was a man. He opened the back door of the car and threw the sack in, and that’s all I saw, because I went back inside then. But I suppose he must have driven away, because the car’s not there now.’

  ‘I suppose you didn’t see the reg number?’ Slider asked without hope.

  ‘I wasn’t really looking,’ Mish said apologetically.

  ‘Bloody hell, Michelle,’ Tash exploded, ‘you seen all that and you didn’t say. Why didn’t you call me out to have a look?’

  ‘Because you were busy, and I didn’t know it was important,’ Mish said exasperatedly. ‘Haven’t you been listening? I said, I wasn’t really taking any notice.’

  ‘Can you say what sort of car it was?’ Slider cut across the budding argument.

  ‘I dunno. I think it was black. And it had four doors.’ She shrugged. ‘I don’t know the different makes.’

  ‘What about the black plastic sack? You said it was full. Could you tell how heavy it was?’

  She stared again. ‘Not very,’ she said at last. ‘I mean he was carrying it all right, not staggering along. And he swung it into the car. I’d say it was bulky more than heavy – like maybe it was full of clothes.’

  And perhaps it was, Slider thought – along with personal papers and wallet and mobile – and a laptop. Unless it had been one of the other tenants, or a guest of theirs. Or customer. There was going to have to be a lot of careful questioning, and a lot of time-consuming cross-checking, which was a nuisance. Because although the sack, its contents, and the murder might not be connected, there was a chance they were, and the beanie-clad figure and the sack were well away from here by now.

  ‘Did I see a murderer?’ Michelle asked in a small, impressed voice.

  Natasha looked at her with mouth ajar. ‘I thought it was suicide?’ she said.

  ‘We don’t know for sure that it wasn’t,’ Slider said, a form of words which confirmed each of the girls in her separate view.

  Renker had gone with the body and the coroner’s officer to the morgue: as there was doubt as to the identity, continuity had to be ensured, and he was the first officer to have seen the body. Hollis had brought Mr Botev back to the station. When Slider arrived, he fetched Mackay from the CID room and went in to question him, and let Mackay do the asking while he listened and studied the man. Botev was clearly unhappy about his surroundings, and was glaring about and sweating heavily. He complained vociferously about having been brought to the station. ‘I done nothing wrong! What is this, police state?’

  He had little to tell them about the deceased. He had given his name as Robin Williams, but Botev had not asked for any form of identification. ‘Why should I? Name mean nothing to me. Long as he pay rent and make no trouble, call himself what he like.’

  ‘And did he pay his rent?’

  ‘Sure he did. Wouldn’t be there otherwise.’

  ‘How did he pay? Cash, cheque?’

  ‘Cash,’ said Botev. Of course, thought Slider.

  ‘Did he give you his previous address? Any references?’ No in both cases. ‘So you really knew nothing about him.’

  ‘What I need to know?’ Botev said simply. ‘He want room, I got room. He pay me, I leave him alone.’

  It was a nice choice of words, Slider thought, looking at the meaty hands resting on the table. On the shady side of the street, might is right. Some landlords had to pay and retain a couple of shaven-headed suit-bulgers with hams for hands to put their point of view across, but Botev was like a boulder in human clothes. What he lacked in height he made up for with a usefully low centre of gravity.

  Mackay pursued the barren path doggedly. ‘How did he find out that you had a place vacant? Was it through an agency?’

  Botev gave the suggestion a contemptuous snort. ‘Advert. I put cards in shops. Many cards, many shops.’

  No trail there, then, not after three months. Slider came in for the first time. ‘There must be something you can tell me about this man,’ he suggested. ‘There he is, dead, in your house—’

  ‘Kill himself!’ Botev interrupted indignantly. ‘I not control this. If I know, I throw him out, do it someplace else. Not my fault!’

  Slider went on as if he had not spoken. ‘I’m sure there are many things about that house you would rather we didn’t know about. Illegal immigrants, drug dealers, not to mention over-occupancy, fire-regulation breaches, probably planning breaches too. And then there’s the question of tax and VAT. If you think having the police on your back is bad, you should try Revenue and Customs. I promise you they make us look like little fluffy kittens by comparison.’

  Botev licked his lips, and his eyes looked angry and trapped. ‘What you want from me?’ he cried. ‘I know nothing.’

  ‘I want to be sure you’re on our side, so that if you find out anything, or hear anything, or remember anything about this man, you’ll tell us.’

  Under Slider’s unwavering stare, Botev opened and shut his mouth, his eyes roving for escape. Then, like a torture victim blurting something, anything, that might get him off, he said, ‘He painted room – painted walls. And cleaned carpet. He ask when he see room, can he do it before move in. I say yes. Why I care? But it crazy, I think. Why he do that?’

  Why indeed? Slider thought.

  Slider’s boss, Detective Superintendent Fred ‘The Syrup’ Porson, was a walking example of reasons not to get promoted. He disliked meetings, hated politics and was practically allergic to golf. He hadn’t got the first notion of schmoozing, avoided senior pressmen, and believed the role of politicians should be to come up with the money and leave the police to do the job their own way. In fact he was an old-fashioned copper who was roundly despised by his well-groomed, corporate-friendly, jargon-squirting superiors, who viewed his bumpy bald head, shaggy eyebrows, elderly wardrobe and non-PC impatience with the cult of victim-hood as a betrayal of everything the last decade had stood for.

  He had kept his job through all this evolution thanks to a couple of high-profile successes for which, with the best will in the world, those above him had not been able to claim all the credit. But they would see to it he never went any further. He didn’t look right. He just wouldn’t fit in. They would never want to have a brainstorming breakfast or a working lunch with him. The
y probably secretly suspected that he ate with his mouth open.

  Porson got back from headquarters at Hammersmith, where the latest ‘initiative’ had been explained to him, in a less than rosy frame of mind, to receive the news of the Conningham Road case.

  ‘Case?’ he growled at Slider. ‘A case of walking your chickens before they can run, if you ask me.’ Another reason the high-ups didn’t care for Porson was that he used language like a man flailing at wasps – usually effective, but never a pretty sight. ‘I go out for a couple of hours and you mobilize the entire eighth army.’

  ‘The fingerprint evidence shows he was left-handed,’ Slider said sturdily, and explained about the electric razor.

  ‘And the cut was a right-handed one?’

  Slider demonstrated. ‘Even if he’d tried to cut himself on the left side with his left hand, his elbow would have been banging the wall. Very awkward. And why would he? He’d naturally tilt his head over and cut on the right side. But a right-handed murderer . . .’ He demonstrated again.

  Porson was reluctantly mollified. ‘All right. Sounds as though you’ve got something to investigate. What else?’

  Slider explained about the lack of ID, the clothes, and the black-sack man.

  ‘What about this Botev? He sounds a bit tasty. Could it have been him?’

  ‘It’s possible he might have been involved. He couldn’t have been black-sack man – he’s got a very distinctive figure, and the girl was sure it wasn’t him. And I don’t think he would have been the murderer. If he had been going to kill Williams, he wouldn’t have wanted it done on his own premises.’

  ‘Safest place,’ Porson countered. ‘Somewhere you can control things. But that bath stuff, nancying about – half-arsed attempt to make it look like suicide – no. That doesn’t sound like a straightforward gang-bashing, punishment hit or whatever. If that’s what you’re suggesting.’

  ‘I’m only suggesting Botev might have some interesting friends and contacts. I just feel there’s something odd about Williams being in that flat in the first place. A shabby, furnished room, where they don’t even clean between lettings? If he didn’t care about such things, why did he clean and paint it himself? If he did care, why go there?’