Killing Time (20 page)

Maybe, he thought, she had not demurred because she thought he would not consider it? She usually kept herself a firm pace out of his former life, deeming it to be his own business. Maybe he should have put it to her? Perhaps, like Hart, she would think it nice?

No, he couldn’t be
that
wrong about her. But it made no sense to be paying for two properties. Maybe he should accept that he was not going to be able to sell it, and try to let it instead. But it would need a bit of capital spent, and who would provide
that? Ernie was the only one with cash. Wherever he stepped, his foot landed in Ernie. The fact was that the easiest solution to everything would be for him and Irene and the children to move back in here. He shuddered. He hated being here, and prey to thoughts like that. Better get out fast and have a restorative curry.

He went downstairs again, switching off the stairs light at the bottom. The other downstairs lights were off, but there was enough coming through the glass door to see by. In the ghastly sodium dusk he looked round for Hart. She had wandered off somewhere.

‘Where are you?’

She appeared silently in the doorway to the lounge, right beside him.

‘Are you ready, then?’ he asked.

‘Mmm,’ she said. She was very close, and as she turned her face upwards towards him he realised, suddenly and shockingly, that she wanted him to kiss her. Or, rather, that if he kissed her she wouldn’t object, she would respond. He looked down, saw the gleam of her eyes, the full firmness of her lips, and he learned what a large variety of thoughts could bound through the head simultaneously – and at a moment when he was having enough trouble controlling his instant hormonal reaction, without having to sort a panic-stricken babble into order of importance.

She was
attracted
to him? He had never thought of himself as sexually attractive, though Joanna evidently found him so, but that was different, wasn’t it, that was the whole bit, troo lurve? But as for Hart, oh my God, had he led her on, did she think that was what he brought her here for? Hadn’t anyone told her about Joanna? He was right after all, you couldn’t treat a female colleague exactly like a male colleague. Now what was he going to do?

The most horrifying aspect of the situation was that the lawless stirring in his loins was whispering that he could do it, yes he could, why not, he was a free agent wasn’t he, why waste a golden opportunity? And simultaneously in yet another subsection of his brain he remembered that Kate had always got loin and lion mixed up and had long believed that loin chops had a much more exotic origin than the sheep or the pig.

Sometimes Fate takes pity. He did not have to discover how he would have got out of
that
one, because a shadow appeared behind the glass of the front door, and a key was slipped into the lock. It was Irene, of course. Apart from her, only the estate agent had a key. She said, ‘Bill?’ enquiringly, and a little nervously, as she opened the door. The front door obscured her view of them at first, but the hall was so small that once the door was opened flat against the right hand wall, he and Hart were immediately before her as she stepped in.

She stopped and stared at them. Slider saw immediately how it must look. He and Hart were standing very close together, all the lights were off, and the air was sulphurous with maculate conceptions.

‘I saw your car out there,’ Irene said falteringly, ‘but there were no lights on. I thought – I wondered—’

Thanks a lot, Fate, Slider thought. Out of the doodah into the whatsname.

‘We were just leaving,’ he said. As an answer it left a lot to be desired – which was evidently also how Irene viewed Hart. Slider could see her bristling. ‘I just popped in to check that everything was all right,’ he said. ‘This is Detective Constable Hart. My wife Irene.’

‘How d’you do?’ Hart said politely, but she did not move away from Slider’s side. She looked at Irene curiously. The staging was all wrong, he realised: Hart was standing in a position of belonging, looking at Irene-the-outsider.

‘Am I interrupting something?’ she asked icily.

‘Of course not,’ he said. ‘Don’t be silly. As I said, we were just leaving.’

‘Don’t go on my account,’ Irene said.

‘Look, we’ve been working late and we were going to get something to eat, but I remembered I had to check on the house, so we stopped here on the way,’ he said. He felt Hart stir beside him, and knew she was right. Never explain. It only made things worse – as if, paradoxically, it proved there was something to explain.

‘Working late. Yes, of course,’ Irene said, looking with operatic contempt from Slider to Hart and back. ‘I should have remembered that’s what it was always called. I was a policeman’s wife for long enough.’

‘Irene—!’ he began, exasperated.

‘Oh, I don’t blame you,’ she said bitterly. ‘I’ve no right, when it was me that—’ She couldn’t quite say it. ‘You’re a free agent after all. I just would have thought that you’d – not in this house—’ She choked and turned away. Slider felt a monumental annoyance that was only intensified by the knowledge that (a) she actually felt those things, despite the hackneyed words, (b) it was really he who was the guilty party, and doubly guilty because he went on letting her think it was she who had sinned first and (c) that she had hit on some of the same words, free agent, that he had been thinking himself only seconds before.

‘Irene, will you stop talking like a Barbara Cartland heroine. Nothing is going on here.’

‘It’s none of my business if it is,’ she said, maddeningly. ‘I won’t hang around here getting in your way. I just—’ She dissolved into tears.

Slider pulled out his handkerchief and stuffed it into Irene’s hands. ‘Yes, what were you doing here, anyway?’ he asked, trying for a mixture of briskness and kindness.

‘I was just passing,’ she said, muffled as she mopped, ‘and I saw your car.’

‘Just passing? From where to where?’

‘Don’t interrogate me!’ she said with a flash of her old spirit. ‘I’m not one of your criminals.’

‘Sorry. But really—’

‘All right,’ she said angrily, ‘I sometimes come here. When I’m feeling – when I don’t feel right at Ernie’s, I come here and just sit. It’s my home, and I miss it, all right? I sit here and think – think that maybe we could get it together again, maybe you would forgive me and come back. Like a fool, I thought perhaps you missed it too. I see how wrong I was.’

‘You were wrong,’ he said, ‘but not for this reason. WDC Hart is a member of my firm, that’s all, and I don’t think we should discuss our private lives in front of her.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Irene said, though he had no confidence that she believed him. ‘Like I said, I’ve no reason to complain. I was the one—’ She stopped again. He hated her to feel so very bad about her lapse.

‘We’ll talk,’ he promised. ‘We’ve got a lot of things to say.
But not now, not here. I’ll ring you, all right? And we’ll meet and talk.’

‘All right,’ Irene said, muted.

Hart seemed to shake herself free of her paralysis – or was it just curiosity? Everyone was nourished on soap operas these days. ‘I’ll go and wait in the car, guv,’ she said, thought about saying goodbye to Irene and wisely thought better of it, and took herself off.

‘She’s a pretty girl,’ Irene said.

‘She’s a colleague, that’s all,’ Slider said wearily.

‘It doesn’t matter,’ Irene said. She looked at the handkerchief in her hand. ‘I’ll wash and iron this and send it back to you.’

‘I wish you wouldn’t talk like that.’

‘I’ll give it to you next time I see you, then.’

‘Are you all right now? Can you drive yourself home all right?’ The moment he said it, he cursed himself. She was going to say ‘this is my home’ and start it all off again.

But she just nodded. ‘You’ll phone me?’

‘I promise.’

She started to go, and then stopped and said, looking up at him, ‘I miss you, Bill.’

He knew he had to say, I miss you too, but wondered what effect it would have on her expectations; and in wondering hesitated just too long. She lowered her head, turned, and trudged off.

He locked the house up and went back to the car. When he was in, Hart said, softly and feelingly, ‘Christ.’

And then some, he thought. He started the engine.

‘I’m sorry, guv,’ she said.

‘It’s not your fault. I’m sorry you came in for it.’

‘D’you want to just drop me off at the tube or something?’

He looked at her, surprised. ‘We haven’t eaten yet. I don’t know about you but I need a curry. A Madras at least, after that.’

She looked at him for a moment, and then grinned. ‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘Me too.’

The taxi driver’s name was Leonard Marks. ‘Lenny,’ he simplified it, offering his hand to Slider. He was a tall, well-built man with a large, handsome, fleshy face, thick wavy hair, and
brown, steady eyes. Everything about him seemed calm, open and facing forward, like a lion gazing out over the veldt. ‘Lenny the Lion, they call me,’ he added on the wake of Slider’s thought. ‘From Sniffy Wheeler’s garage in Homerton. Anyone’ll tell you.’

‘Right,’ said Slider, accepting the bona fides. ‘Thanks for coming in.’ Monty had telephoned first thing to tell Slider he had found his man for him.

‘It’s the business all right,’ Monty had said proudly. ‘Good as gold, Lenny. Everyone knows him.’

‘So you think you can tell me something about this chap?’ Slider went on, tapping the print of Jay Paloma’s photograph.

‘That’s right. It was Monday morning, last week, about half eleven – quarter to twelve. I’d done a book job to Paddington Station, but I don’t generally like ranking up, unless I can see a crowd waiting, and there was nothing doing at the station rank. So I was cruising. I came down Edgware Road, round Marble Arch, down Park Lane. There was a fare outside the Dorchester, but I got overtaken – some smart-arse butterboy in a brand new cab who doesn’t know the rules. I’ve got his number!’

He wagged his head significantly. Slider knew that to overtake – to take a fare who was signalling another cab – was a heinous crime, and no mercy was shown to the sinner. ‘Go on,’ he said.

‘Right,’ said Marks. ‘So I get down to Hyde Park Corner and it looks like the Lanesborough Hotel rank is running, so I go round and put on. Anyway, just as I got up to point, your friend here appears.’

‘He came out of the hotel?’

‘No, he was a walk-up. But funny enough, I saw him in my rear-view mirror, paying off another cab at the corner. That’s why I remembered him particularly. I wasn’t really looking at him, of course, I only glanced, but I got that impression.’

Slider nodded. This man’s impression was probably sure enough. ‘You didn’t see whose cab it was?’

‘No,’ he said apologetically. ‘It was just a black cab. I didn’t see the number or the company or anything. Well, anyway, this bloke comes up to my window and asks for Chelsea Embankment. I says to him, “Any particular part, sir?” because
a lot of people call it Chelsea Embankment all the way along, from Cheyne Walk to Vauxhall Bridge. And he says, “Oh, yes, Flood Street, please.”’

‘How did he seem? What was his manner?’

Marks considered. ‘A bit vague, maybe. Had his mind on other things.’

‘Nervous?’

‘Could have been. Maybe a bit. Preoccupied, is what I’d say.’

‘Did you have any conversation with him?’

‘Not a dickie. He just sat there looking out of the window. Anyway, soon as I turned into Flood Street off King’s Road, he tapped the glass and said, “Anywhere here,” so I pulled in, he nipped out, paid me, and walked away.’

‘Did you see where he went after that?’

Marks smiled a slow, handsome smile. ‘Well, as a matter of fact, I did. You see, I drove on down to the end of Flood Street, but the Embankment was chokka, so I did a u-ey and came back up to get back on the King’s Road again. And there he was, standing on the steps ringing the doorbell. And as I get opposite, the door opens, and I see the householder all smiles letting him in. And I thought to myself, so much for all your cloak-and-dagger stuff, chum, changing cabs and getting out at the corner! Because it was obvious this bloke’s a ginger, and the house he’s visiting doesn’t belong to Jimmy Nobody.’

‘I don’t suppose by any wild chance you saw the number of the house?’ Slider asked.

‘I didn’t need to,’ Marks said. ‘I know the address very well. I’ve been there a few times, I know who lives there. It’s Sir Nigel Grisham.’

‘What, the MP?’

‘Cabinet Minister,’ Marks corrected significantly. ‘Practically the Grand Old Man of the party. So how d’you like them apples?’

‘Good God,’ Slider said. ‘You’re quite sure about all this?’

Marks nodded. ‘I saw him. I’d recognise him anywhere. Hurrying your bloke in, he was, hand on his elbow, peeping past him to make sure no-one was watching.’ He mimed it graphically.

‘But
you
were watching. If you were just opposite the house, surely he must have seen you?’

Marks shook his head. ‘Seeing’s not a matter of what’s there, is it? It’s a matter of what your brain takes in. And a black cab in London – well, it’s part of the furniture, like a pillar box or a lamp-post. Your brain kind of edits it out. Unless you’re looking for one, you just don’t see it. I’ve noticed it time and again.’

‘Sir Nigel Grisham,’ Slider said wonderingly. Paloma had certainly been sinning above his station.

Marks grinned. ‘Who’s a naughty boy, then?’

‘You’re willing to make a statement about this?’

‘Sure. Any time you like. Always willing to help. And I’ll put out the word on that other cab, if you like, the one I saw your friend getting out of. Chances are he changed twice if he was trying to be clever, took his local cab to somewhere no-one’d think anything about. I’ll see what I can do.’

‘Thank you,’ Slider said, ‘but I don’t think it’s important. We needed to know where he went rather than how he got there.’

‘I’ll ask around anyway. It’s no trouble,’ Marks said, brushing his mane back with a casual paw. ‘Anything you want, just ask for Lenny the Lion.’

As he went into the CID room, heads flew apart. The two closest were Hart’s and Norma’s, and Slider felt a low, depressing sensation that they had been talking about him, that Hart had been describing the marital scene on the doorstep. Or was that indigestion? He shouldn’t eat Madras, or at least not after six p.m.