Orchestrated Death (10 page)

He woke gently, with that Christmas-Day feeling of something delicious having happened that he had forgotten about while asleep.
He moved slightly and felt a responding movement beside him, and knew he was not in his own bed and not alone, and everything
came back to him all-of-a-piece. He opened his eyes. In the light from the window he looked at her, curled on her side, sleeping
quietly. The covers had slipped off her, and she seemed all made of curves, strongly indented at the waist, richly rounded
at breast and hip. Her hair looked soft and heavy as if it were moulded from bullion, too dense to curl, each lock lying separately
like the petals of a bronze chrysanthemum.

He reached out a hand to push it from her face and she smiled and moved her face to his hand. He smoothed her eyebrows and
the smiling dents at the corners of her mouth, and her face felt pliant and flowing under his fingers as if he could shape
her. He felt powerful. The world outside was dark and damp like something newborn, and it was all his. She shivered suddenly,
and he drew her to him and pulled the covers over her. She stretched gratefully in the restored warmth, and her hand contacted
his penis, and it rose to meet her.

‘Hmm?’ she enquired gently, her eyes still closed.

‘Hmm,’ he replied, running his hands over her shoulders and sides. She uncurled like a flower, and he seemed to flow into
her effortlessly. This time they took time over it, seeking out pleasure softly, kissing and touching a great deal, and it
was unbelievably good, unlike anything he had ever experienced
before. He was happy and amazed.

‘I love you,’ he said afterwards, and then got up on his elbows and looked at her to see her reaction.

‘Don’t you think it’s a little early to be saying that?’ she asked, amused.

‘Is it? I don’t know. I’ve nothing to compare it with. I’ve never done this before, you know.’

‘In that case, I’m very flattered.’

‘I wish I’d met you years ago,’ he said, as people will at such a moment.

‘You wouldn’t have liked me,’ she said consolingly.

‘Of course I would. You must have –’ The green, luminous read-out of her bedside clock-radio caught his eye. He turned his
head slightly and went cold with shock. ‘Christ, it’s twenty to seven!’

‘Is it?’ She didn’t seem perturbed by the news.

‘It can’t be! We can’t have slept the whole night through!’

‘Not so much of a whole night,’ she murmured, and then, seeing he really was upset, ‘What’s the matter?’ But he was off her,
rolling to the side of the bed, swinging his legs out, groping on the floor for clothes. She knew what was wrong, and her
mouth turned down sourly.

‘Christ,’ he was muttering, ‘that’s done it. What the hell do I do now? Jesus.’

She propped herself up to look at him. ‘You can’t go home now,’ she said reasonably. ‘You’ve been out all night, and that’s
that. Come back to bed for a bit. Seven o’clock is early enough to start making excuses.’

But it was no good: the world had rolled onto him like a stone. All the clean simplicity had been delusion, his omnipotence
had fled. There was going to be a row at home, and he was going to have to think of lies to tell. Probably Irene would not
believe him, and he was going to feel bad about it whether she did or she didn’t.

‘Christ,’ he muttered. ‘Jesus.’

‘Take it easy,’ she said protestingly.

He shook his head, hunching his shoulders away from her. ‘I’ll have to make some phone calls,’ he said miserably. ‘I’m sorry.’

She looked at him a moment longer, and then got quietly
out of bed on the other side, and drew a cotton wrap over her glowing nakedness. ‘Phone’s beside you. I’ll go and make some
tea.’

She padded away, and he understood that she didn’t want to hear him lying, and that was nearly the worst thing of all. He
reached for the phone.

Atherton was a long time answering. ‘I was in the shower. What’s tip? You’re up early.’

‘Actually, I haven’t been to bed yet.’

‘What?’

‘Not my own bed. I’ve been out all night.’

There was a short and horrible silence. Then, ‘I’m not hearing straight. Please tell me you don’t mean what I think you mean.’

Slider could tell from his tone of voice that he really didn’t think that’s what it was, and the knowledge depressed him even
further.

‘I’ve been with Joanna Marshall. I’m at her place now.’

Another, slightly worse silence. ‘Christ, guv, you don’t mean –’

‘I took her out for supper last night, and then –’ No possible way of ending that sentence. Slider grew irritable with guilt.
‘Oh, for God’s sake, I don’t have to draw you pictures, do I? You can use your imagination. You’ve done it yourself often
enough.’

‘Yes, but I –’

‘The thing is, I’ve got to tell Irene something. Can I tell her I was with you?’

‘Oh great.’ Atherton’s voice hardened. ‘She’ll love me after that.’

‘I don’t think she likes you much anyway. It can’t make any difference. Please. I’ll ring her up and say we were working late
at your house, and we had a few drinks, and it got too late to come home.’

‘Why didn’t you phone her from my place?’

‘Oh God – it got too late, I thought she’d have gone to bed and I didn’t want to wake her.’

‘Jesus, is that the best you can do?’

‘What the hell else can I say? Come on, for God’s sake, back me up.’

‘All right,’ Atherton said shortly. ‘But I don’t like it. It’s not like you, either. What’s got into you?’

‘Every dog has its day,’ Slider said weakly.

‘I mean, messing around with a witness –’

‘She’s not a material witness. For God’s sake, what does it matter? It’s going to be bad enough facing Irene – don’t you give
me a hard time as well.’

‘All right, all right, don’t bite me! I’ll say whatever you want. I’m just worried for you, that’s all.’

‘Thanks. I’m sorry.’

‘Take it easy.’ The concern was naked in his voice. ‘You going to phone Irene now? You going home?’

The idea made Slider shudder. ‘I think it’s best not to. I’ll go down and talk to the next of kin – the aunt in the Cotswolds.
Will you do the paperwork for me? You got my messages last night?’

‘Yeah. Okay. I’ll get old Mother Gostyn in this morning, and check out John Brown. And I thought I’d take the violin down
to Sotheby’s.’

‘Good. And you might see if you can get hold of Anne-Marie’s ex-boyfriend, this Simon Thompson type.’

‘Okay. Will I see you later?’

‘Depends what comes up. I’ll phone you, anyway.’

‘Right.’ A pause. ‘Are you taking her with you?’

The idea flooded Slider’s brain with its bright originality. ‘Well, I – yes, I thought I might.’

He heard Atherton sigh. ‘Well – be careful, won’t you, guv?’

‘Of course,’ he said stiffly, and put the phone down. Joanna came in with a mug of tea.

‘Finished?’

‘That was Atherton, my sergeant. He said he’ll – back me up. You know.’

‘Oh.’ She turned her head away.

‘But now I’ve got to –’

‘I’ll go and run my bath,’ she said abruptly and left him again, her face expressionless. And that was the easy part, he thought,
dialling his own number.

Irene picked it up at the second ring. ‘Bill?’

‘Hullo. Did I wake you up?’

‘Where are you? What’s happened? I’ve been worried sick!’

‘I’ve been with Atherton, at his flat. Didn’t Nicholls phone you?’

‘He phoned yesterday evening to say you’d be late, that’s all. He didn’t say you wouldn’t be home at all. How late can you
be, interviewing witnesses? What were they, night workers?’

Her anger was at least easier to deal with than hurt or worry. He felt guiltily grateful.

‘They were musicians and they were giving a concert and we had to wait until they’d finished. Then Atherton and I went over
some of the statements. We had a couple of drinks and – well, I didn’t think I’d better drive.’

‘Why the hell didn’t you
phone?
I didn’t know what had happened to you. You might have been dead.’

‘Oh, darling – it got late, and we hadn’t noticed the time. I thought you’d have gone to bed. I didn’t want to wake you up
–’

‘I wasn’t asleep. How do you think I could sleep, not knowing where you were? I don’t care what time it was, you should have
phoned!’

‘I’m sorry. I just didn’t want to disturb you. I’ll know another time,’ Slider said unhappily.

‘You’re a selfish bastard, you know that? Anything might have happened to you, with your job. I just sit at home wondering
if I’m ever going to see you again, if some madman hasn’t gone for you with a knife –’

‘They’d have got in touch with you if anything had happened to me.’

‘Don’t joke about it, you bastard!’ He said nothing. After a moment she went on in a lower voice, ‘I know what it was – you
and that bloody Atherton got drunk, didn’t you?’

‘We just had a couple of scotches –’ He tried not to let the relief show in his voice as the danger disappeared up a side
track. Let her go on thinking that was it!

‘Don’t tell me! I hate that man – he’s always trying to set you against me. I know how you two go on when you’re together
– telling smutty stories and giggling like stupid little boys. You don’t realise how he’s holding you back. If it
wasn’t for him, you’d have been promoted long ago.’

‘Oh come on, darling –’

‘Don’t darling me,’ she said, but he could hear that the heat was going out of her voice. The new, sharp-edged grievance had
been put aside for the old, dulled one. ‘You should be a chief inspector by now – everyone knows that. Your precious bloody
Atherton knows that. He’s jealous of you – that’s why he tries to hold you back.’

Slider ignored that. He made his voice as sensible and man-to-man as he could. ‘Look, darling, I’m sorry you were worried,
and I promise I’ll phone if it ever happens again. But I’ll have to go now – I’ve got a hell of a lot to do today.’

‘Aren’t you coming home to change?’

‘I’ll make do as I am. The shirt I’ve got on isn’t too bad, and I’ll get a shave at the station.’

The domestic details seemed to soothe her. ‘I suppose it’s no use asking you what time you’ll be home tonight?’

‘I’ll try not to be late, but I can’t promise. You know what it’s like.’

‘Yes, I know what it’s like,’ she said ironically, but she had accepted it. She had accepted it all. The boat had righted
itself again. He rang off, and found himself sweating, despite the cold air of January.

He felt rather sick. So this was what it was like. He thought of the thousands of men there must be to whom such lying and
dissembling were part of normal, everyday life, and wondered how they ever got used to it. And yet he had just coped, hadn’t
he? Coped well. Lied like an expert, and got away with it, and felt relief when she’d swallowed it. Self-disgust reached its
peak. Perhaps all men were born with the ability, he thought. Well, he knew what they knew now.

The peak passed. He listened and heard water splashing somewhere, and thought of Joanna, and at once the distress of the phone
calls dropped off him cleanly, leaving no mark. He thought of making love to her, and heat ran under his skin. We can spend
the whole day together, if she’s not working. Oh pray she’s not working! A whole day with her –!

That was the other half of it, wasn’t it? And it was the fact that they could exist in complete isolation from each other
that made the whole thing possible. What absolute shits we
are, he thought, but it was without any real conviction. Oh pray she’s not working today! And that she’s got a razor in her
bathroom with a half-way decent blade. He got up and padded in the direction of the splashing.

The man from Sotheby’s, Andrew Watson, apart from being tall, slim, blond, and impeccably suited, was also possessed of that
unmistakably upper-class beauty that stems from generations of protein diet and modern sanitation. It gave him the air of
possessing youth and wisdom in equal, incompatible proportions. Actually, he couldn’t possibly be as young as he looked, and
be as senior as he was. Atherton’s upbringing in Weybridge and his grammar-school education were weighing heavily on him.
He felt, by comparison, as huge and ungainly as a behemoth. He saw himself looming dangerously over the other man as if he
might crush him underfoot like a butterfly. And Andrew Watson’s aftershave was so expensively subtle that for some time Atherton
put it down to imagination.

All that apart, however, he was quite endearingly excited by the violin, the more endearingly because Atherton guessed he
wanted to display only a calm, professional interest. After a long and careful examination, prolonged conference with a colleague,
and reference to a book as thick as an eighteenth-century Bible, Watson seemed prepared to go over every inch of the fiddle
again with a magnifying glass, and Atherton stirred restively. He had other things to do. And he wanted to be around when
Mrs Gostyn was brought in. There had been no reply from her telephone that morning, so Atherton had arranged for one of the
uniformed men to go round and fetch her.

At last Watson came back to him. ‘May I ask where you obtained this instrument, sir?’

‘You may ask, but I’m not at liberty to tell you,’ Atherton replied. It was catching, that sort of thing. ‘Is it, in fact,
a Stradivarius?’

‘It is indeed, and a valuable one – a very valuable one. My colleague agrees with me that this is a piece made by Antonio
Stradivari in Cremona in 1707, which has always
been known by the name of La Donna – The Lady,’ he translated kindly. Atherton nodded gravely.

‘There is, as you see, a particular grain to the wood forming the back of the instrument, which is very unusual and distinctive,’
Watson went on, turning it over to demonstrate. Atherton looked, saw nothing very distinguishable, and nodded again. Watson
resumed. ‘The piece was very well known, and its history is well documented right up to the Second World War, when it disappeared,
as so many treasures did, during the Nazi occupation of Italy. Since then there’s been a great deal of speculation as to its
fate, naturally. It would be of great interest –’ his voice took on an urgency ‘– not just to me personally, but to the world,
to know how it has come to light again.’