Blood Sinister (26 page)

‘Like institutional racism?’

That made her pause. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘That was unfair. But, Bill, I’m good at what I do! And what I do is
me
. If I stop playing the fiddle and get a job as a checkout girl—’

‘But that isn’t the option that’s on offer, is it?’ he said carefully. ‘If you stay, you’ll still play. You may have to take another job as well, to make ends meet, but you won’t have to give up playing altogether.’

She stared. ‘You
have
made up your mind.’

‘No, I haven’t, but—’

‘I
want
this job! It’s important. It’s a fabulous opportunity for me, don’t you understand? It’s like – oh, I don’t know – you being offered Assistant Commissioner or whatever.’

‘But I don’t want promotion. I just want to go on doing what I’m doing. I’m good at it. And what I do is me, too.’

She turned her face away miserably, twiddling the stem of her glass. ‘I just can’t see a way out.’

‘I don’t want us to part,’ he said after a moment. ‘The thought of being without you is – well – I don’t know. I don’t want to face it.’ Inside his head the words flowed, powerful and passionate, but, man-like, all he could get out through his tight lips were crude wooden effigies of meaning. ‘Don’t try and make a decision now. Let’s both think and try and find a solution.’

‘I can’t hold off for long,’ she said. ‘Wolfie’s going to want an answer.’

‘All right, but please, let’s try and think of a way round it,’ he pleaded.

She shrugged, which meant she’d try, but she didn’t know
what else there was to think. For that matter, neither did he. The realisation that he could lose her – or rather that they could lose each other – proved to him how strongly he had taken root in her. He felt shaken, loosened, likely to go over in the next strong wind. And yet, what solution was there? His foolish jealousies of the past, when he thought she might run off with another man, would have been a pleasure now, compared with the pain of this real dilemma.

He was disturbed mid-evening by a telephone call.

‘That’s my mobile,’ he said. ‘It must be work.’

Joanna, curled in the corner of the big, shabby leather chesterfield, staring at the television, grunted but didn’t stir. On the screen a weather girl with straggly hair and wearing one of those Suzanne Charlton over-the-bum jackets (did they draw from a common wardrobe, like nuns?) was saying, ‘. . . but the watter wather will at least bring some warmer temchers, tickly in the wast.’ Come back, Michael Fish, he thought. We forgive you the hurricane for the sake of your diction. Restore some ‘e’s to our forecasts.

He went out into the hall and stood by the front door, where the signal was better, to answer. The sepulchral tones of Tidy Barnet smote his ear. If a smoked haddock could speak, he’d sound like Tidy.

‘’Ullo, Mr S. That diction’ry bloke you was asking about, right?’

That would be Michael Wordley. Tidy, one of Slider’s best snouts, had a way of avoiding using names. Telephones – particularly mobiles – were not secure, and his life was perilous enough as it was.

‘I’m with you,’ Slider said.

‘You never warned me you ’ad anuvver bloke askin’ questions,’ Tidy said sourly. ‘Tripped over ’im, didn’t I?’

That would be McLaren’s snout, presumably. ‘I didn’t know. One of my men had an idea and put the word out.’

‘Yeah, I know ’im. The stupid one.’

‘I wouldn’t say that.’

‘Useless as a chocklit fireman. His snout’s a useless bastard an’ all. Wouldn’t know if you was up ’im wiv an armful o’chairs.’ Tidy sounded unusually irritable.

‘Sorry if it crossed your lines. My man’s snout said dictionary man was involved in a murder.’

‘Murder? That ain’t what I ’eard,’ said Tidy. ‘Diction’ry went off Wensdy night wiv a certain party, call ’im Little Tommy, right?’

That would be Tucker. At least McLaren’s snout got something right. ‘Yes, I know who you mean.’

‘Well, they’re plannin’ a bit o’ biz between ’em. Goin’ to turn over this rich tart’s gaff, right? They was doing the clubs and boozers all Wensdy night, went ’ome well pissed Fursdy morning. Little Tommy’s telling everyone he meets, the moufy div. Dictionr’y’s not ’appy wiv ’im. They ’ad a row in Paddy’s club in Fulham Palace Road about two o’clock.’

‘Went home where?’

‘Little Tommy’s gaff. He lives wiv his mum down North End Road.’

‘When was the job supposed to be done?’

‘Fursdy,’ said Tidy. ‘They must a done it all right, ’cos I ’eard there was a lot o’ tom come on the market sudden. More’n that I can’t tell you.’

‘Well, thanks,’ said Slider. ‘You’ve done a great job. If you can get anything on where the job was or what they did before and afterwards, I’d be grateful.’

‘Yeah, I’ll keep me ear out.’

‘That other thing I asked you about?’

Tidy chuckled. ‘Yeah, that’s a queer one. Well, it ain’t my field, but I laid it off on another bloke, and he’ll give you a bell when ’e knows, right? Name o’ Banks. Harry Banks, but they calls ’im Piggy.’

Slider was shocked. ‘You never use names!’

‘Yeah, well, ’e ain’t in the business, is ’e? Got nothink to fear from Piggy Banks.’

Slider returned to Joanna. ‘Trouble?’ she asked.

‘That was Tidy Barnet,’ he said. ‘I’m now expecting a call from a man called Piggy Banks.’

‘Your life’s one long episode of
The Magic Roundabout
, isn’t it?’ Joanna said.

After the disappointment over Josh Prentiss, Commander Wetherspoon was only too pleased to jump at Tucker, and
being of the generation that loved kicking down doors and shouting, ‘Go, go, go!’ he recommended the Syrup to arrange a visit to the Tucker demesne on Friday. It proved unfruitful. Mrs Tucker,a phlegmatic, respectable but deeply stupid woman, was found in sole possession. She opened the door to them without waiting for them to kick it in, and confirmed quite willingly that Seanie had come home with Micky Wordley in the early hours of last Thursday morning, both of them a bit pickled. Micky had slept on the sofa. They had got up about one o’clock Thursday afternoon and Mrs Tucker had got them breakfast, a big fry-up, which was what Seanie liked when he’d been out drinking the night before. They’d sat about afterwards having a smoke and a chat, and they’d gone off about three o’clock, saying they were going down the club. No, they hadn’t said which club, but Seanie liked the Shamrock in Hammersmith now he was banned from the Nineteen. And she hadn’t seen them since.

Hadn’t she been worried about that?

No, not really. Seanie was a big boy, he could look after himself. He often went off places. He’d come back when he wanted a clean shirt or something.

Did she know what he and Micky were planning to do on Thursday?

No, they never mentioned. She never knew what Seanie was up to. He was a big boy, he could look after himself.

Did she ever wonder where his money came from, given that he didn’t have a regular job?

Oh, he was in business, her boy. She didn’t know what sort. He bought and sold things, she thought. She didn’t understand business. She left all that sort of thing to Seanie. But he was doing all right. And he was a good boy, very good to his mother. Gave her a lovely watch at Christmas. Second-hand it was, but a very good one, solid gold.

After a close search of Tucker’s room and the rest of the house, which revealed nothing but a lamentable collection of pornographic magazines in a suitcase under Tucker’s bed, they left. McLaren was elated, and shone in the glow of a prophet proved right.

Slider, however, was sceptical. ‘Unless everyone’s been holding out on us, I’d hardly call Phoebe Agnew a “rich tart” – and
there’s no evidence that she ever had a lot of jewellery. She was a confirmed dresser-down, from anything we know.’

‘But these stories always get exaggerated,’ Hollis pointed out, fairly. ‘It’s possible Wordley went and did her for some other reason, and lifted her watch or something in the process. Villains like him are daft enough to try and flog it afterwards.’

‘Yeah, and we’ve still got my snout saying he’d been mixed up in a murder,
and
he’s missing since Thursday,’ McLaren pointed out.

‘Well, it’s all we’ve got at the moment,’ Slider said, ‘so you’d better get on with it. You and Anderson can go round the pubs and clubs and try and find out where they went. Ask all your snouts for information; and ask any of the fences who co-operate if there’s been any jewellery through their hands in the past week. You could try Larry Pickett. He might come across, since tom isn’t his field.’

After a morning poring over case notes and statements, Slider went up to the canteen for a late lunch, and with an air of what-the-hell, ordered the all-day breakfast. Sausage, tomato, bacon, egg and beans. The baked beans had reached that happy state that only canteen beans know, when they had been kept warm for so long that the juice had thickened almost into toffee. He sat down with it at a quiet table and laid the papers he had brought up with him beside the plate.

He hadn’t been there long when Atherton appeared beside him with a tray.

‘Can I join you?’

Slider grunted consent, and Atherton unloaded tuna salad and a carton of apple juice. Each of them looked at the other’s lunch with horror.

‘No fried bread?’ Atherton asked, sitting down.

‘They’d run out of the proper bread. Only had that thin sliced stuff. You might as well fry place mats.’ He dipped a stub end of sausage in his egg yolk. ‘Where’ve you been, anyway?’

‘I just slipped out for a minute,’ Atherton said. ‘Personal time.’

To the bookies, Slider wondered? Atherton, too, had brought a folder up with him, and looking at it upside down Slider read
the name of the racehorse consortium company, Furlong Stud, with the address near Newmarket.

‘You’re not really serious about that, are you?’ he asked, a little tentatively.

Atherton swallowed. ‘Of course. Why not? Look, you think everything to do with racing must be crooked but that’s just paranoia. Thousands of people go into racehorse ownership every year.’

‘And lose their money.’

‘No,’ Atherton said with a patient smile. ‘It’s an accepted medium of investment now. There’ve been articles in all the money sections of the papers. These people’, he tapped the page, ‘quote an investment return of twenty-four per cent.’

‘Guaranteed?’

‘Of course not guaranteed,’ Atherton said. ‘But it’s not a pig in a poke, you know. We’re all going down to see the horse tomorrow. You watch it on the gallops, time it against other horses. And the winning times of the various big races are all published, so you can tell if the animal’s fast or not. It’s all up front.’

‘And how much are you putting in?’ Slider asked.

‘Fifteen each.’

‘Fifteen hundred? It’s a lot of money.’

‘Fifteen thou,’ Atherton corrected, faintly self-conscious.

‘You’re joking!’

‘That’s just to begin with. Look,’ he added impatiently, ‘with a return of twenty-four per cent there’s no point in messing about with small change. You ought to come in on it with me. Look how much difference it could make to your finances.’

‘I haven’t got fifteen thousand,’ Slider said, bemused.

‘Nor’d I. I remortgaged,’ Atherton said. ‘You’ve got to help yourself in this life. If you can’t make enough to live on one way, you have to try another.’

‘Where have I heard those words before?’ Slider said. ‘No, wait, I read them – in the Bent Copper’s Almanac.’

Atherton looked away, compressing his lips. ‘There’s no point in talking to you. You’re prejudiced. Anyway, it’s my business what I do with my money.’

‘True,’ said Slider lightly, to cool things down. But he was dismayed. This had the hallmarks of obsession about it, and
looking at his colleague’s face as he forked salad into it with rather angry movements, he could see the lines of fatigue and strain. Atherton had always been one of that blest band of coppers who rode the swell and seemed unperturbed at the end of each day; but since his serious wounding during the Gilbert case, he seemed to have joined the mortals.

Atherton had opened his file and was ostentatiously reading, so Slider turned to his own papers and tried to work out what the loose ends were. Prentiss denying having sex with Agnew on Thursday in the face of all evidence to the contrary was the most annoying: but Prentiss was out of it now. Even if he had lied about that, it seemed he had told the truth about the rest. None of the numerous street sightings seemed to have related to him, but the combination of the phone call and the witness at Colehern’s flat put him out of Agnew’s way before she was killed.

Prentiss said it wasn’t him that had eaten the meal, and if he wasn’t the murderer there was no reason to doubt his word on that; so who had eaten it, and wiped away his finger-marks afterwards? The same person who left the marks on the unit? In that case it wasn’t Wordley. And then, what about the thumb mark on the flush-handle? How many people had there been swanning about that damned house on Thursday anyway?

And then something occurred to him. He shuffled through his papers for Bob Lamont’s report. Why hadn’t he thought of it before?

‘It says here’, he said aloud, ‘that the thumb mark on the flush-handle of the loo was the only one.’ Atherton looked up. ‘It was clean apart from that.’