Blood Sinister (25 page)

‘And he killed her because—?’

‘Pick a reason,’ Atherton shrugged. ‘He’s probably always loathed her. Why not? Oh, all right, if you want me to be logical about it – his political career is just taking off and she’s going to get in the way. If she’s known him all those years she probably knows something about him he doesn’t want to get out. We just have to find out what it was. No, it’s still Prentiss for me. He’s the only one who makes sense of all the rest of it.’

‘Well, we’ll see,’ said Slider. ‘And then we’ll know.’

Porson was pacing about, shaving his craggy chin with an elderly electric razor that buzzed feebly, like a fly on its back, as if it was barely up to the challenge.

‘Where have you got with Prentiss? I’ve got to talk to the press and TV for the evening news, and it’s going to get a bit hot under the collar if we don’t find something positive to tell ’em. I’ve had Commander Wetherspoon on the dog again, and he didn’t make pleasant listening.’ He put down the razor and began struggling with the top button of his shirt. ‘Wanted to know why we haven’t charged Prentiss yet, after all the fuss we’ve made. He was more or less inferring that heads will roll if we don’t come up with a result in short order.’

Slider hated having to do it to him. ‘I’m afraid it looks as though Prentiss is out of the frame, sir.’

Porson did a creditable double take, and froze in the act of tightening his tie. ‘What?’

‘I’ve had the report from BT about the telephone call Piers Prentiss put through to Agnew on Thursday evening. It was timed from 8.43 to 8.45; Josh Prentiss arrived at Maria Colehern’s flat at 8.30.’ He saw the question in Porson’s eye and added quickly, ‘One of her neighbours saw him going in and confirms the time. A good witness. I don’t think there’s any doubt that when he left Agnew she was still alive.’

‘Oh, good grief!’ Porson cried. ‘I’m not hearing this. I am not hearing this. You mean to tell me that after a week on the case all you’ve done is clear the prime suspect? You’ve upset the Home Secretary – and the PM himself – for no reason? What am I going to tell the press conference? What am I going to tell
Mr Wetherspoon? He’ll have my balls for garters. And who’s going to tell Prentiss?’

He stamped about and raged for a while, and Slider bent his head and bore it patiently. He didn’t blame The Syrup. He was up at the sharp end when it came to censure, and would have to explain it all to a hostile news media gathering. Slider wouldn’t have liked to be in his shoes and under those lights.

When he calmed down a bit, Porson sat down – unusually for him – behind his desk, and said, ‘So where does it leave you? What have you got left to follow up?’

‘There’s Wordley, sir. McLaren’s still looking into him. But we’ve got nothing on him, except that he’s got a record, and that he’s been missing since Wednesday night. And there’s a mass of reports on people seen in the street and going in and out of houses. We’ve been working our way through them. Most of them will be nothing to do with the case, as always, but we may still turn up something. There are Agnew’s papers, still being sorted. Something may turn up there. And we’ve got the team going over her major articles and campaigns, trying to find if there was a conflict of some kind that may have come back on her.’

‘In other words,’ Porson grunted, ‘you’re back at numero uno.’

‘There’s still the possibility’, Slider said, ‘that it was a random killing. Someone just broke in – the lock’s easy to slip – and killed her for the hell of it.’

Porson looked at him sharply. ‘But you don’t think so?’

‘It doesn’t smell like that to me.’

‘Nor to me,’ said Porson.

‘I mean, why would they tie her up like that afterwards – unless it was a joke?’

‘The tying up aspect of the scenario is what puzzles me most,’ Porson admitted. ‘No record of those extra fingerprints anywhere, I suppose?’

‘Nothing.’

Porson sighed. ‘You’ll just have to plod it out, then.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘You realise, don’t you, that Prentiss will probably sue us for destroying his career?’

Slider braved it out. ‘I was just doing my job, sir.’

Porson shrugged. ‘Best thing you can do is get your head down and get a result, double quick time. Meanwhile,’ he stood up, the gloom intensifying on his granite crag, ‘my unenviable task is to go and face the cerebos of the press.’

It turned out to be a long day. Prentiss – who in reason ought to have been pleased to be cleared – was not a happy bunny when the news was broken to him, and Commander Wetherspoon was not thrilled to have to be the one to break it. Telephone calls, press briefings, urgent conferences and carpetings followed. Slider was glad to have the bulk of Porson to cower behind. He was a funny old duck, but he stood by his men.

Slider was just putting things away, about to go home, when McLaren came in.

‘Guv—’

‘You still here? There’s no overtime tonight, you know.’

‘No, I been out talking to my snout,’ McLaren said.

‘You’re a bleeding contortionist, you are.’

McLaren took it phlegmatically. ‘He’s got a line on the bloke Wordley went off with on Wednesday night. He reckons the description fits a geezer name of Tucker, Sean Tucker. Ex-bouncer. You know the sort, out-of-work Milk Tray man, all muscles and black roll-necks. Used to work down the Nineteen Club in Warwick Road – I busted him a few times when I was at Kensington.’

‘He’s got previous, then?’

‘More form than a Miss World contest. Tasty as they come. Got sacked from the Nineteen for violent affray, and he’s into serious naughties now. Nicked over at Notting Hill a while back for conspiracy to murder, but the CPS gave it away. Anyway, word on the street is him and Wordley’s mixed up in something big.’

‘Planning a robbery?’

‘No, guv,’ McLaren said with satisfaction. ‘My snout says the word is they’ve done a murder.’

‘Any word on who?’

‘No, that’s all he said, that Tucker and Wordley are mixed up in a murder.’ He eyed Slider hopefully.

‘It’s a lead,’ Slider acknowledged, ‘but I’ve got reservations. Why would Wordley involve Tucker? It wasn’t a two-man job.’

‘Maybe he didn’t know that,’ McLaren said. ‘She was a strong old doris, and gutsy. She could’ve put up a fight.’

‘Faking the rape doesn’t look right for Wordley.’

‘He’s thick enough to think it might help. And Tucker’s always been a clever bastard. No, I can see him thinking it up, and laughing while Wordley does it. What about going round Tucker’s gaff and giving him a tug? He lives over North End Road. Tucker’s a toe-rag, he never minds shopping his oppos to clear himself. If we rough him a bit, he might drop us Wordley.’

‘Well, it never hurts to roust them, I suppose,’ Slider said. ‘And he might at least know where Wordley is. I’ll put it to Mr Porson tomorrow.’

‘Tomorrow?’

‘It’s no good pouting at me, I told you there’s no overtime tonight. Anyway, Mr Porson’s gone home, and my voice is the last one he’ll want to hear until he’s had a good night’s sleep. I’ll speak to him in the morning and if he authorises the manpower we’ll see about bringing Tucker in.’

‘I was just gonna go on my own,’ McLaren protested. ‘Have a little chat.’

‘Haven’t you read the new Health and Safety guidelines? A trained officer is an expensive piece of equipment and you can’t just chuck it into a situation without assessing the risk. More than any mother, the Metropolitan Police doesn’t want your face altered. Tucker could be dangerous, and you’re not going to roust him alone, and that’s final.’

McLaren subsided into resentful mumbles. ‘I go all out to get this red-hot lead—’

‘Tucker will keep,’ Slider said. ‘If Mr Porson rolls for it, and the budget’ll stand it, we’ll have a go at him tomorrow.’

As a counter-irritant, trying to find a parking space in Chiswick was up there with the greats. Slider’s first words as he came through the door were, ‘If I have to park much further away, I might as well leave the car and walk to work.’

‘Hello,’ said Joanna, coming out into the passage. Her woebegone face reminded him of the situation he had left behind, and that living in Chiswick might soon be a thing of the past
anyway. They looked at each other for a moment, and then he held out his arms and she walked into them.

He rested his weary chin on the top of her head and sought for something tender to say. ‘What’s for supper?’

‘Sausage and mash,’ she said, in the tone a farmer’s wife might use to say, ‘The cow’s got mastitis, the hens are off lay and the goat’s eaten your trousers.’

‘I like sausage and mash,’ he said, kissing her ear. ‘Especially with fried onions.’

‘There are onions,’ she conceded. He nudged her face round and kissed her mouth. He had only meant to kiss, but he felt that instant arousal at the touch of her that still surprised as much as it delighted him. His love of her was so continuously, satisfyingly physical. He just wanted to be having her all the time. What was it about her, anyway? Why wasn’t she followed everywhere by a pack of stumbling, drooling, lust-dazed men? Maybe it wasn’t her, maybe it was
them
. The thought pleased him. There was a nice, kismet symmetry to it; a jigsaw-puzzle satisfaction. Slot their two pieces together and, lo, a bit of God’s big picture emerged.

As he had continued kissing her while having these thoughts, the matter had now become urgent, so he started walking her backwards towards the bedroom, shedding his coat and jacket as he went.

Some time later he had a long, groaning stretch and said, ‘Ah, that’s better than sinking into a hot bath when you get back from work.’

‘Gee, thanks,’ she said, sitting up and pushing the hair out of her eyes. Some of the strain had gone from her face, so evidently it had worked for her as well. ‘You can have one of those too, if you like.’

‘I’m too hungry to wait that long. A quick shower will do.’

‘All right, I’ll go and put the potatoes on.’ At the door she turned back and said, ‘I suppose, man-like, you think that changes everything.’

‘It did for me,’ he said. ‘Altered my profile, anyway.’

She grinned unwillingly. ‘Rude,’ she said, and disappeared.

When they finally sat at the table in the bay window of her sitting-room, a bottle of Côtes du Rhône had joined them, and was making itself agreeable all round. While they ate, he told
her about the day’s developments, and she listened in silence, not throwing herself into it as she usually did. When food and conversation both came to an end and they were left with only the last half glass of wine, she said, ‘The problem hasn’t gone away.’

‘I know,’ he said.

‘I’ve just been going over and over it all day,’ she said, ‘and I can’t see a way round.’ She looked at him anxiously. ‘I’m reminded again that now your divorce is through you’re a free man.’

He didn’t pretend not to understand her. ‘After the proofs of love I’ve just given you?’

‘Hot sex, agreeable though it is, doesn’t necessarily mean lifelong commitment.’

‘I was referring to eating your sausage and mash,’ he said. And then, suppressing a self-conscious smirk, ‘Was it really hot?’

‘The earth’, she assured him solemnly, ‘outmoved a Travelodge vibrating bed.’ And then she tacked off in her disconcerting way. ‘It’s always struck me as risky, having those things in California. All over the state, people must be missing earthquakes.’

‘I’ve never been to California,’ he said. ‘Or anywhere in America. I’m just a home-body.’

‘Which brings us neatly to the point. How’s that for a link?’ she said without pleasure. ‘Bill, what are we going to do?’

‘I love you,’ he said. ‘I know that’s not an answer, but I thought I’d mention it.’

And she looked sad. ‘That sounds like the sort of thing people say just before they split up.’

‘I would never leave you,’ he said.

‘Which just throws it back on me. It’s not fair. Why should I have to choose between my career and my man?’

‘I’m not asking you to.’

‘Yes you are. Implicitly.’

‘Well, it’s what you’re asking me,’ he said fairly.

‘And you won’t even consider it.’

How had they got back here so quickly? ‘It’s not that I won’t consider it, it’s that I don’t see how it’s possible.’

‘It may be impossible for you to be a policeman in Holland – I have to accept your word for that because I don’t know – but you could do something else.’

‘Petrol pump attendant? Road sweeper?’

She glared at him, the rage of the trapped animal. ‘If I stay, the same fate awaits me – or doesn’t that prospect bother you? Probably not. There’s a streak of the old-fashioned male in you that thinks a woman’s job is less important than a man’s. I suppose all men think like that, underneath. It’s just the little woman amusing herself – harmless as long as the housework gets done.’

‘Did I say that?’ he protested, but mildly. He knew the rage was not really directed at him, but at the situation.

‘No, but it’s there all the same, the attitude. It’s what you think even if you’re not aware of it.’