Fell Purpose (11 page)

‘That’s enough of that language,’ McLaren said, and threw her a T-shirt from the floor at his feet. ‘Put that on. We just want to talk to you.’

She inspected him, smiled unpleasantly, picked up the T-shirt and deliberately dropped the sheet so that they had a brief introduction to her womanly frame before it disappeared under the soiled cotton.

The youth, to do him credit, looked angry with her and muttered, ‘For fuck’s sake, Lil, it’s the filth.’

‘Well, they can get the fuck out of my house,’ Lilly said, feeling around in the bed. ‘Gimme a fag, Len, for fuck’s sake.’

‘I said that’s enough of that,’ McLaren said.

‘Oh, get lost,’ she said with weary irritability, taking a cigarette from Lennie and sucking at the light he offered. She looked, Slider thought, anything between fifty and sixty, but he knew how drugs aged people, so she was probably only in her early forties. Her face was sickly pale, with brown circles under her eyes and an uncomely spot coming up on her chin, and her hair was limp and greasy, flat to her skull and straggling over her shoulders. But she might once have been good looking: she had a strongly sculpted mouth (though it was turned down disagreeably now), a determined chin and a straight nose. But just now, sucking on the cigarette in between phlegmy coughs, she looked like an old bag.

Slider showed his badge and told them who he was. ‘I’m looking for Mike Carmichael,’ he said.

Lennie looked cautiously at Lilly, who said, ‘I don’t know any Mike. So you can piss off out of my house. What’s
he
want?’ She directed her verbal energy suddenly towards Fathom, who had appeared in the doorway, unable to bear not seeing. He didn’t speak, and she stitched an appalling smile on and said, ‘You got any change, love? I’m short me rent. Come on, love, a coupla quid. Give us twenty and I’ll give you a blow job.’

Fathom looked taken aback and she went into raucous laughter. ‘Your face!’

Lennie looked embarrassed and said, ‘Can it, Lilly, for fuck’s sake. It’s the police.’

‘Oh, don’t you think coppers do it? I’ve had plenty of them in the past, I can tell you. You want names?’ She leered at Slider.

‘Just tell us where Mike is, and we’ll leave you in peace.’

‘I don’t know any Mike. So get out.’

‘Your son, Mike. Michael Carmichael.’ Slider had seen the candle, spoon and glass straw on the mantelpiece, the tackle for chasing the dragon, which was evidence enough to arrest the pair of them – not that he wanted to. He gestured to McLaren to pick up the piece of silver foil from the floor – obviously the wrap the H had come in. McLaren picked it up and showed it to them.

‘There’ll be enough traces on this to show what was in it,’ he said. ‘We’ve got a field test kit in the car. Possession of scag is a serious offence – and what’ll we find if we search a bit more?’

It was enough to alarm Lennie. ‘Mike’s not here,’ he blurted.

‘Shut your mouth, you stupid little shit,’ Lilly growled at him.

‘Look, it’s her, not me. I don’t do scag.’

‘I’ll kill you, you fucking rat!’

‘You let me go, and I’ll tell you.’

‘Tell me, then,’ Slider said calmly. ‘Where can we find Michael Carmichael?’

Lilly flung herself at her lover with an incoherent scream, and Fathom leapt into action, throwing himself at her and grabbing her arms. McLaren had to go to help him, while Slider gestured Lennie back as he jumped out of bed, and warned him not to try to leg it. Fathom and McLaren were at a disadvantage with Lilly, since they had to fight fair, try not to hurt her, and keep from being bitten or scratched – God knew how toxic she was. McLaren could have felled her with a tap to the chin, but they weren’t allowed to do that. After a bit she got tired of the business and stopped struggling, otherwise they could have been fighting for hours. She slumped back on the bed, coughing. They kept hold of her arms, panting, but she said, ‘Let me go. I gotta find my fag, before the bed goes up.’ And when they let her go, she gave herself to rummaging about for the lit cigarette that had fallen among the sheets in the struggle.

Slider said, ‘All right, Lennie. Where’s Mike?’

In the interval, the naked youth had put on a pair of sweat pants from the floor, and now was standing with his arms wrapped round his chest, watching, his eyes flitting about as if calculating the odds of escape.

‘You’ll let me go?’ he said now.

‘I promise.’

‘Well, he ain’t here. He don’t live here no more. He’s got these friends up town – rich kids. He hangs about with them now. We’re not good enough for him,’ he added scathingly.

‘Where does he live?’

‘I don’t know the address. It’s in Notting Hill, that’s all I know. He wouldn’t tell me.’

‘Shut your face, you little shit!’ Lilly said angrily. ‘I’m warning you.’

He looked at her with a wrench of contempt. ‘I’ve had it with you, you rotten slag. You’re always calling me names. I don’t owe you nothing.’ He looked at Slider. ‘Mike’s got it good up there, selling coke to these rich kids for big money. Well, why wouldn’t he? Better than knocking stuff out round here for half the price. He doesn’t like me and I don’t like him. You should hear what he said about me and Lilly. He thinks he’s too good for the likes of us now. Well, stuff him! And stuff you, Lilly! You and your skanky son. I’m not getting in trouble for either of you.’

Lilly screamed at him incoherently, and Fathom and McLaren had to restrain her again, while Slider was having to persuade Lennie not to deprive them of his company just yet, which was how he excused himself afterwards for not having heard anything from outside. But suddenly all the ruckus stopped as if by magic. Someone had appeared in the doorway. Slider turned to see a young man in leather jacket and jeans standing there.

Lilly saw him too, stopped writhing, and cried urgently, ‘Mikey, have you got the stuff? Have you got the shit for me, Mikey?’

The man disappeared with amazing speed. Slider flung himself after him, feeling, rather than seeing, McLaren coming behind.

But the fleeing man had jumped astride a powerful motorbike parked at the kerb. Because the engine was hot, it caught at once. Slider only managed to touch a sleeve with fingertips as he swerved out of reach. McLaren passed him running as the bike roared up the road, but he stopped after a few yards, seeing it was hopeless. The bike turned the corner and was out of sight.

Slider ran to the car. There wasn’t the faintest chance of catching him with that sort of start, but the gesture had to be made. The others piled in, and he drove off with a squeal of rubber.

‘Anyone get the number?’ McLaren said.

No one had.

‘It was a Harley Davidson,’ Fathom said.

‘Yeah, we got that,’ McLaren said witheringly.

‘But he must be making big money, to have a bike like that,’ Fathom offered.

‘Yeah,’ said McLaren, ‘and better than that, we know we’re on to something, or else why did he run?’

SIX

One Ring Leads to a Mother

S
ergeant ‘Nutty’ Nicholls, the handsome, polyphiloprogenitive Scot from the far north-west, took the trouble to come upstairs to Slider’s office from the front desk to report that there was a woman waiting to see him. ‘She says she’s your victim’s headmistress.’

‘Oh? Well, I’d better see her. She might have an insight to share. What’s she like?’

‘Posh. I doubt she’s ever seen the inside of a polis station before. She spoke to Harris ve-ry slo-owly to be sure the puir heathen understood what she was saying.’

‘We’d better not slap her in an interview room, then,’ Slider said. ‘Can you get someone to wheel her up here?’

‘My thought exactly. She’s the sort that’d tell on ye in a minute. Years of working with children warps your mind. It’s a bad business, this, Bill,’ he went on, suddenly serious. ‘With six girls of my own, I hate it like fire. Any leads yet?’

‘Not really. But we’ve got everyone out asking questions, and someone will have seen something. They always do.’

‘Aye. Well,’ he sighed, ‘not to be suggesting anything, but I don’t know if you knew that Ronnie Oates is back in circulation.’

‘The Acton Strangler?’ Slider said, and then distracted himself. ‘I can’t believe we’ve got a serial killer called Oates.’

‘God has a strange sense of humour,’ Nicholls acknowledged. ‘But I’d remind ye that he’s never killed anyone.’

‘I beg his pardon,’ Slider said. Oates had indecently assaulted five women, and although the assaults themselves had been fairly minor, he had a proclivity for choking his sexual partners during the act, which had eventually got him into trouble when one of them complained. It had also finally brought him to the notice of the press, who could not resist giving him the sobriquet. ‘What did he get last time?’

‘Four years. He was a good boy and got out after eighteen months. That was a couple of months ago, and Arthur told me when we swapped over that he’s been seen around East Acton again, where his mother lives.’

‘Arthur’ was Paxman, the sergeant on the night relief.

‘How come he always knows everything?’ Slider complained.

‘People tell him things. He’s like the river that king in the legend stuck his head in, to whisper his secret. He flows.’ Nicholls demonstrated a beautiful smoothness with one hand. ‘Men may come and men may go but he goes on for ever.’

‘Well, thanks for telling me, anyway,’ Slider said. ‘Oates liked to use the women’s own tights, didn’t he?’

‘That’s why I thought you ought to know right away,’ said Nicholls. ‘The trouble with people like him is that they escalate. The sin loses its edge so they have to sin a bit harder to get the same thrill. And he’s just stupid enough to want to earn his sobriquet. He may have finally crossed the line, Bill.’

‘Yes,’ said Slider. It was a dismal prospect.

‘I’ll wheel up your woman,’ Nutty said. He got to the door and turned back to say, ‘His ma used to tie him up when he was bad, you know – Oates. When he was a wean. Used to tie him to the banisters by the neck so he wouldn’t struggle. Used to use a pair of her old tights.’ He shook his head. ‘The things we do to our children.’

The woman moved so briskly across the room that Slider only just had time to get to his feet before she thrust her hand out to be shaken.

‘Elizabeth Finch-Dutton, head teacher of St Margaret’s,’ she said crisply. ‘Zellah Wilding’s head teacher. They tell me you are the officer in charge.’

He’d forgotten they didn’t call themselves masters and mistresses any more. ‘Detective Inspector Slider,’ he said. Despite the warm day, her hand was cold and dry, and the grip was hard and brief, like a politician’s, and quickly withdrawn.

‘I heard the dreadful news this morning, on the radio. I’m so shocked I can hardly believe it. Is it true the poor child was murdered?’

‘I’m afraid so.’

‘But – how? I mean, what—?’

‘I’m afraid I can’t go into any of the details,’ Slider said.

She pulled herself together. ‘Of course. I understand. It’s just so
incomprehensible
. In the absence of information the imagination tends to run wild.’

Let it run
, said Slider’s sturdy silence.

‘I thought I’d better come here and see if there was anything I can do,’ she said meekly. ‘It’s good of you to see me, when you must be so busy. But if I can help in any way, I will gladly rally any forces at my command to find out who did this dreadful thing.’

Slider gestured to her to sit. She was tall and thin, in her late fifties probably, with cropped grey hair, large glasses and a professional smile – a ritual baring of teeth. It seemed to be coming and going rather randomly, as if she kept finding herself doing it automatically and then realizing it wasn’t appropriate to the occasion. She was not as much in control of herself as she wanted to appear, and Slider liked her the better for it.

‘Any background information you can give me?’ he suggested. ‘What was your impression of Zellah?’

‘She was one of our
stars
. A
very
able girl. She was a
prefect
, you know, and she was under consideration for
Head Girl
next year. Exemplary behaviour
and
academic prowess.
Such
a good example to the lower forms. We
all
thought a great deal of her.’ Her accent was crisp and her enunciation perfect, and she spoke with an emphasis carefully placed on one word in each phrase – a learned trick of rhetoric, presumably, but which made her sound authoritative. What she said would be the last word on any subject. ‘It’s so terrible to think of all that
potential
cut short in this
senseless
manner. She was the sort of girl we
all
long for but
rarely
get through our hands: a girl with a real
academic
intellect. Her A levels were sciences, you know.’