Blood Sinister (14 page)

‘I’m sorry too,’ he said. ‘It was never what I …’ He couldn’t say wanted. ‘. . . anticipated. When I married you, I really thought it was for good. But things change.’

‘
People
change,’ she said, as though that were something else.

‘Yes. We’re both different now,’ he said carefully. ‘I just phoned to see if you were all right.’

‘That was nice of you.’ He couldn’t tell if she was being ironic or not.

‘I do care about you, you know,’ he said. ‘I want you to be happy. And also—’ This was more delicate territory. ‘Well, I phoned because I wanted to say thanks. That I appreciate all you did for me all those years. I wanted to say – I’m not sorry that we married.’

‘Yes,’ she said, and the line vibrated with perilous emotions. ‘Me, too. Thanks for saying that. We had some good times, didn’t we, Bill?’

‘We did,’ he said, though for the moment he couldn’t think what they were. Except the children. They were definitely a good thing. ‘Will you tell the children?’ he asked.

‘I suppose so. When they get back from school. I think they’ll take it all right. I mean, they must know it was about due.’

‘Do you think’, he asked diffidently, ‘it would be a good idea if you and I were to take them out somewhere together next weekend? Just the four of us. If I can get the time off.’

‘To celebrate?’ Irene said, with a twist of lemon.

‘Of course not to celebrate,’ he said. ‘To reassure them. To show we can still be all right together, even though – well, you know. What do you think?’

‘It might be nice,’ she said cautiously. ‘But I won’t say anything to them yet, in case you can’t get the time. I wouldn’t want them to be disappointed.’

If she had learned one thing in the years she had been a policeman’s wife, it was not to plan ahead.

Atherton came in, looking as if he had been out on the tiles.

‘Late night?’ Slider asked casually.

‘No, early. Early, early hours.’

His breath had the vinous sting of heavy consumption. Slider thought if he took a breathalyser test right now his drive in to work might take on a whole different complexion.

‘Nice to be able to afford debauchery,’ Slider said.

‘You have yours laid on at home,’ said Atherton.

Slider wasn’t sure what he meant by that. Had the dog been up to his old tricks? But he didn’t feel up to pursuing it. ‘I’ve had Freddie Cameron on the phone,’ he said, and passed on Freddie’s report.

Atherton’s greyness was shed instantly. Alert, eyes wide, he sat on Slider’s window-sill and crossed his arms into thinking position. ‘Wait a minute, wait a minute, this is weird! He has sex with her, using a condom, because he’s a careful boy – or she’s a careful girl – and chucks the debris down the lav, presumably as per usual habit; relaxed enough about it anyway not to check that the corpus voluptae is safely off on its journey to the sea. Then he has sex with her again, without precautions. Then gets her drunk, strangles her, and arranges her on the bed to make it look like a stranger-rape, despite the fact that his semen is inside her, ready to finger him as the rapist.’

‘It doesn’t make sense,’ Slider agreed, ‘but we don’t know what order things happened in. Maybe it was sex with condom, then more drinks, then unprotected sex because they or she were merry enough not to care.’

‘Then strangulation,’ Atherton acknowledged, ‘but why the rape scenario?’

‘Not thinking clearly. If he was drunk too …’

‘But if he was trying to make it look like a random rapist, he ought to have faked a break-in as well. A stranger wouldn’t have known that you could slip that lock.’

‘He would if he tried,’ Slider said.

‘Yes, but Prentiss wouldn’t know that we’d realise that. If someone’s faking something they daren’t get that subtle, in case the other side misses it.’

‘I’ll just sit here and let you argue yourself into a corner,’ Slider said. ‘There are yet other scenarios.’

‘Sell me one,’ Atherton invited.

‘Sex with condom, drinks, quarrel or whatever, strangulation, and then bondage sex with the corpse, because that’s what he
really likes, or as an act of revenge – humiliating her when she couldn’t fight back.’

‘You’ve got a nasty mind,’ Atherton complained. ‘But necrophilia does at least make more sense than the set-up idea. Anyone who’d do that would be mad enough not to care about leaving the semen behind, and wouldn’t need to fake a break-in. But Prentiss didn’t have a scratch on his face, did he?’

‘It needn’t have been the face,’ Slider said. ‘It could as easily be the neck, or it might be hand or arm, trying to loosen his grip. Or it might have been the bare body while they were bonking. And in any case, Freddie says it’s a tiny tissue sample – nothing more than a slight abrasion.’

‘I suppose she was too drunk to fight much,’ Atherton said. ‘I didn’t like the woman, but she’s gaining my sympathy point by point.’

‘But remember, we don’t know yet that the semen is Prentiss’s, or even that both lots are from the same person. Prentiss may have noshed, made love and left, and the murderer came in afterwards for the rest of the sex. Or someone else might have been responsible for the condom and Prentiss for the rest.’

‘And meanwhile we’ve got an unverifiable alibi for him, and a wife who gives him an alibi he apparently doesn’t want.’

Slider smiled faintly. ‘Life is fun, isn’t it?’

‘So what’re you going to do, guv?’

‘Have a crack at Giles Freeman myself, and get Porson to try and hurry the DNA results. We’re stuck without them. Meanwhile, you go and have a bash at Mrs P. Your famous charm and sexual magnetism might get something different out of her.’

‘Okay.’ He stood to go. ‘What’s this about you giving the fabulous Norma away at her wedding, by the way?’

‘How the hell did that get out?’ Slider said, startled.

‘Oh, it isn’t out. Norma told me. Wanted to crow over me, I think. But I told her you wouldn’t go if I wasn’t there.’

‘And she believed you?’

‘Not entirely,’ Atherton admitted. ‘She called me a lying, weaselling scumbag. So I’m relying on you to get me an invite, guv.’

‘Why should I?’

‘Could you bear to think of me being humiliated in that
way?’ Slider nodded grimly. ‘Could you live with yourself afterwards?’

‘I could try.’

‘You wouldn’t enjoy the wedding without me. It’ll be nothing but strangers there.’

‘My job, of course, doesn’t accustom me to meeting strangers.’

‘Ah, but it’s different in a social situation,’ Atherton said. ‘You need me as a buffer. Look, I’ll get your sandwiches every day. I’ll be good for ever. Go on, go on, get me an invite,
pleeese
!’

‘The furthest I’ll go’, said Slider, ‘is to ask her why she doesn’t want you there.’

Atherton shuddered delicately. ‘No, no, I’ll pass on that. There are some things it’s better not to know.’

After a frustrating interval, Slider, too, got as far as Freeman’s press secretary, Ben McKenzie.

‘I’m sorry, Giles Freeman doesn’t talk direct to anyone,’ he pronounced.

‘What’s he got, a mouth at the back of his neck?’ Slider asked irritably. ‘I don’t think you understand, Mr McKenzie, I’m conducting a murder enquiry—’

‘No,
you
don’t understand,’ McKenzie interrupted him firmly. ‘We’re talking about the Secretary of State, a member of Her Majesty’s Government, not some crackhead off the streets.’

‘I don’t care who he is, he has to answer my questions,’ Slider said. ‘He must confirm or deny Prentiss’s alibi, and make a statement to that effect. I can come myself and interview him, or send one of my officers, or he can come here and do it, but one way or the other it has to be done, and done today.’

‘Today? Absolutely out of the question! Giles has got a completely full diary. Even if he were to grant you an interview – which I stress is highly unlikely – I couldn’t fit you into his schedule anywhere, not any day this week.’

‘Do you want a writ for obstruction slapped on him?’

McKenzie’s voice grew rich with irony. ‘Perhaps you don’t know that Giles Freeman is a
close personal friend
of the Home Secretary. Now are you really telling me you want to blackmail the personal friend of the man who ultimately controls your career?’

Slider smiled happily. ‘Are you really telling me that you want the papers to know that the Home Secretary interfered in a high-profile murder case so that his friend could avoid his clear legal and moral duty to help the police?’

There was a beat of silence. ‘You’d sink so low as to go to the press?’

‘You can always try me and see,’ Slider said pleasantly.

‘I’ll get back to you,’ McKenzie said tersely; and then added, as if driven to it, ‘I hope you don’t live to regret this conversation, Inspector. We don’t take kindly to underhand tactics.’

The line went dead.

McLaren came to the door. ‘Guv, you got a minute?’

‘If I had one of those I’d be a rich man,’ said Slider sternly. McLaren was used to his style, and took it as an invitation to come in. Slider looked up. ‘What’s that on your shirt?’

‘Chocolate,’ McLaren said, after due consideration.

‘You’re a health hazard,’ Slider said. ‘Why can’t you eat without spreading devastation in all directions? What d’you want, anyway?’

‘It’s about Micky Wordley. I’ve been round his gaff—’

‘On your own?’

‘It was just a friendly visit,’ McLaren protested. ‘I wasn’t looking for trouble.’

‘You might have got it just the same. For Chrissake, McLaren, you’re not in this job to get your head blown off!’

McLaren spread his hands. ‘Wordley’s not that much of a head-banger. He’s not going to blow me away just for asking questions, is he? Anyway,’ he hurried on before Slider could answer, ‘I didn’t get to see him. He’s done a runner.’

‘Gone?’

‘Had it away beautiful. Kelly – his girlfriend – says she’s not seen him since Wednesday night.’

‘Oh?’

‘Yeah, some bloke come round about half nine on Wednesday night and they went off together, and he’s not been back since.’

‘Some bloke?’

‘She says she doesn’t know him, but I’m working on that,’
McLaren said. ‘You could see she was scared stiff. Anyway, a snout of mine says he’s heard Wordley’s mixed up in something big.’ He cocked his head hopefully like a pigeon waiting for bread.

‘Something big could be anything,’ Slider said.

‘That’s right,’ McLaren said, taking it for confirmation. ‘Kelly knows he’s up to something with this other geezer, and I reckon if I work on her I can get it out of her. She’s got a soft spot for me.’

Slider blinked. ‘Well, I suppose a lot of women are fond of animals. But look, if there’s any truth in it, that’s he’s mixed up in something big, it’s far more likely that he’s planning another robbery, given his form, and given this mysterious other bloke. He’s not likely to take a chum along with him when he goes a-murdering.’

‘It could be a robbery,’ McLaren said, with an air of stretching a point about as far as it would go. ‘But if that was it, why would he stay away? Kelly says he’s never done that before. He likes his home comforts. The only times he’s stopped out like that was when he’s been on one of his benders.’

‘So what’s your point?’

‘He’s gone out on the piss with this bloke. Next day, still under the influence, he’s gone round Agnew’s place and offed her in a fit of temper.’

Slider thought a moment. ‘And tied her up afterwards to fake a rape?’

‘It didn’t have to be a fake, did it, guv?’ McLaren said intelligently. ‘The sex could’ve been post-mortem. He’s the kind of nutter that’d enjoy something like that.’

‘Is that what his girlfriend says?’

He shrugged. ‘He’s got some very funny ideas, according to Kelly. And he likes a bit of bondage. Anyway, she’s like a cat on hot bricks – she definitely knows something. If I just lean on her a bit—?’ He made it into a question.

‘All right, you can follow it up,’ Slider said. ‘We ought to keep an open mind that it might not be Prentiss. And if Wordley’s disappeared we may as well know why.’

‘Thanks, guv.’

‘But be careful,’ Slider added as McLaren retreated. ‘Wordley’s a dangerous bastard, and he won’t like you messing about
with his girlfriend’s head. Don’t go sticking your face into a hornet’s nest.’

‘I’m not scared of him,’ McLaren said.

‘If you had any brains you’d be scared,’ said Slider.

Mrs Prentiss was a long time answering the door, and Atherton was ringing for the third time, purely in the cause of being thorough, when it opened.

‘Mrs Prentiss? I’m Detective Sergeant Atherton of Shepherd’s Bush CID.’ He showed his ID.

‘My husband isn’t home,’ she said.

‘I know. It’s you I want to speak to.’

‘I’ve already told another detective – a woman – everything I know.’