Shallow Grave (17 page)

Slider came in and entered, almost simultaneously. Porson was a tall, bony man with a surprisingly generous nose, a chin like a worn nub of pumice-stone, and deep, cavernous eyes below craggy, jutting eyebrows that could have supported a small seagull colony. It was hard, however, to notice any of these things when looking at him: the eye was ineluctably drawn to the amazing rug which had given him his sobriquet. It wasn’t just that it was ill-fitting, it was an entirely different colour from his remaining natural hair, which prompted the constant nagging question:
why?

The thing that drove the language-sensitive Atherton mad, however, was that Porson talked like Peter Sellers playing a trade-union representative doing his first ever television interview. He chucked words about like a man with no arms, apparently on the principle that a near miss was as good as a milestone.

‘Now then,’ he said, as Slider closed the door behind him, ‘the Andrews case: as regards the suspect, what is his current status at this present moment,
vis-à-vis
confession?’

‘Hollis and I have just had another crack at him, sir,’ Slider reported, concentrating on the portrait of the Queen on the wall behind the Syrup’s left shoulder. ‘But he still won’t cough.’

Porson frowned. ‘We are in an advanced state of the clock with regard to this one, if I’m not mistaken?’

‘We’ve got six hours to go, before it has to go before the Muppets.’ After thirty-six hours, a magistrate’s authorisation was needed to detain an arrestee any longer.

‘All we’ve got against him is the handbag?’

‘And his refusal to tell us where he was and what he was doing. And the fact that he was heard threatening to kill her.’

Porson walked about a bit, deep in thought. ‘I think we’ll let him go,’ he said at last.

Slider was surprised. ‘Sir, I think the Muppets’d let us keep him. He’s the obvious suspect, and his statement has been shown to be—’

‘Oh, yes, yes, I’m quite well aware that his whole story has been a tinsel of lies. Nevertheless, if he’s decided to dig his teeth in, then there’s no point in banging our heads against a glass ceiling.’

‘But if I carry on working on him—’

Porson shook his head. ‘We can’t afford to be giving free bread and board to every Tom, Dick and sundry. There’s such a thing as budget restraints, you know. I’ve seen ’em like this one before, and believe you me, he’s not going to come across until we present him with irreputable evidence. That’s my judgement. Your job, Slider, is to get the evidence, and you’ll concentrate on it all the better if you’re not running up and down stairs waiting on him like a housemaid’s knee!’

‘Yes, sir,’ Slider said blankly. The knee threw him somewhat.

‘Besides, I’d just as sooner let him go while we’ve got some time left on the clock, in case we want to bring him back in again at some future eventuality.’

‘Well, it’s for you to decide, sir.’

‘It is, laddie, it is, and I’ve decided.’ Porson looked at him sharply. ‘You think he’ll make a skip for it, is that it?’

‘No, sir, probably not, but—’

‘Well, if he does, that’s all grist to our mill, isn’t it? No, my mind’s made up: send him home, keep an eye on him, and meanwhile, let’s see your team come up with some new evidence. Time to look in some fresh directions; get a new prospective on the case.’

‘It’s a long road that gathers no moss,’ Slider concluded.

He didn’t realise he’d said it aloud until Porson, terrifyingly, clapped him on the shoulder. ‘That’s the idea,’ he said approvingly. ‘Neil Desperado. Well, carry on. Keep me informed. And if you want any help, my door is always here. Knock, and ye shall find, as they say.’

Tufnell Arceneaux, the doyen of the forensic laboratory services, was a big man with a big voice. Slider always had to hold the receiver away from his ear when Tufty came on.

‘Bill! How’s she hanging, my old mackerel?’

‘Limp as a three-legged dog.’

‘That’s terrible! Trouble at t’mill?’

‘Trouble everywhere. I hope you’ve got good news for me.’

‘Depends on how you feel about no news. I can’t find anything in your victim’s blood or stomach contents – nothing of significance, anyway.’

‘Damn.’

‘Hold fast, chum! That doesn’t mean there isn’t anything there to be found,’ Tufty bellowed. ‘I suppose you can’t give me an idea of what I’m looking for?’

‘I wish I could. Her doctor says she wasn’t written up for any sleepers or tranks, and there was nothing in the house or in her handbag. But Freddie Cameron says—’

‘Ah, the ineffable Freddie! Yes, I’ve read his report. Well, old hamster, I’ve been through all the normal prescription drugs from soup to nuts, and scored a big fat zero. Nix.
Nada.’

‘What about alcohol?’

‘Oh, she’d been drinking, all right, but there’s not enough alcohol there to account for coma or collapse.’

‘There must be something,’ Slider said in frustration.

‘Very likely, old love, but I can’t test for “something”. Tell me what to look for, and I’ll look for it.’

‘I wish I could,’ Slider said. ‘It’s one of the vast army of things I don’t know yet. Anything interesting on the victim’s clothes?’

‘I’m just your bodily fluids man. I passed the clothing to a minion who is e’en now working on it for you.’

‘What about the semen, then? Though with my luck it’ll probably turn out to be the husband’s.’

‘I’m hoping to get round to the basic tests tomorrow. You know the problem: too much work and not enough assistants. They’re always promising us more manpower tomorrow, but somehow tomorrow never comes. I’ve sent the semen off for DNA profiling, too, but as you know, dear, it’s easier to lift a live eel with chopsticks than to get a quick result from the DNA lab.’

‘Well, never mind, I dare say I shall still be in the same position when the results come back.’

‘Dear boy,’ Tufty boomed, ‘you sound infinitely pathetic!’

‘I’m up to my gills in pathos—’

‘Not to mention bathos and Abednego. How are things on the domestic front? Got your love life sorted out at last? Getting it together with your lovely Euterpe?’

‘My turkey?’

‘Your lady musician,’ Tufty translated kindly.

‘Oh! She’s a joy, but the other side is not so harmonious.’ He told Tufty, who knew Irene of old, about the latest development.

‘You do have all the luck,’ Tufty acknowledged, in what were for him muted tones. ‘My sympathy, old horse. And just when you thought you’d got her nicely bedded in with El Alternative! But you know what the old Jewish proverb says: life is like a cucumber – just when you think it’s firmly in your grip, you find it’s up your arse.’

‘That’s the most helpful thing anyone’s said to me all day.’

‘Go and see Irene face to face, that’s my advice. You know you’re at your most persuasive in the flesh. One look into your sad, doggy eyes, and she’ll be putty.’

‘You might have something,’ Slider acknowledged.

‘And meanwhile, go out and have yourself a good meal and bottle of decent wine. You’ve got to rejuvenate the manly juices.’

‘That’s already in the plans,’ Slider said. ‘Joanna and I have been invited to dinner tonight with what Fred Porson would call a Gordon Roux chef.’

Tufty chuckled. ‘Ah, the dear old Syrup! What a character!’

‘It takes one to know one,’ said Slider, amused.

Oedipus was sitting in one of his outrageous positions – this time balanced on the top of the chairback of the fireside Queen Anne.

‘He can’t be comfortable,’ Joanna observed.

‘He just does it to prove he can,’ Atherton said. ‘It’s a form of intellectual intimidation. The less he appears to want to be noticed, the more he expresses his mental dominance over me.’

Oedipus had his paws tucked under and his eyes shut, but his ears moved like radar saucers, following every movement of Atherton in the kitchen, freezing with special alertness at the sound of the fridge door opening. Joanna leaned against the frame of the door between the sitting-room and the tiny kitchen, watching: she knew better than to offer to help. Slider had taken non-participation one step further and, nursing a G and T, was sitting in the other fireside chair reading the paper, something he hardly ever had time to do.

‘You know who’s missing from this gathering,’ Joanna remarked, watching Atherton frying something.

‘Who?’ he said absently.

‘I love the way you shoogle those things in the pan! Wonderfully professional wrist action.’

He glanced her way. ‘White woman speak with forked tongue. Who?’

‘Sue, of course. She loves your cooking.’

‘Don’t start that again,’ he warned. ‘If she wants to see me she’s only got to ring.’

‘She gave you all the encouragement a nicely brought-up girl can give. It’s for
you
to ring
her.’

‘Why?’ he said brutally, slinging the fry-ees onto plates.

‘Because she’s not going to make all the running. She’s a womanly woman.’

‘And why should you think I want a womanly woman? Move, please, you’re in the way.’

Joanna rolled herself round the supporting jamb as he passed her in the doorway. ‘What would be the point in any other sort?’

‘Sit down,’ he told her, and raised his voice slightly, ‘Bill, are you joining us?’

Joanna regarded her starter of two miniature fishcakes in a puddle of pink sauce, decorated with a twig of watercress. The whole thing was like a bonsai garden: tiny tree, two pebbles and a sunset pool. ‘The trouble with your food is that it looks so professional, it’s discouraging for people like me. I cook things best eaten with the eyes shut.’

‘It’s no more difficult,’ Atherton said, pouring wine.

‘It is,’ she said indignantly.

‘I like your food,’ Slider said stoutly. ‘It’s filling.’

‘Oh, thank you! What’s this sauce?’

‘It’s a sauce. Dill, mostly.’

‘Why is it pink?’

‘Why does Superman wear his knickers over his tights?’ Atherton countered. ‘Do you think I’m going to reveal all my secrets to you?’

Slider sampled cautiously; he wasn’t fond of fishcakes. ‘Delicious,’ he discovered, with relief.

Atherton looked at him cannily. ‘I expect you’d prefer a nice half-a-grapefruit with a dazed cherry in the middle, but, dear heart, you are not going to get it in this house.’

Slider smiled at him with perfect concord. ‘This stuff,’ he said, lifting the watercress with his fork, ‘is just the Islington equivalent of a cherry tomato and two slices of cucumber.’

‘Eat it, it’s full of iron. You need iron at your age,’ Atherton said.

They ate companionably, but the empty fourth side of the square table now seemed a rebuke. Atherton cursed Joanna for bringing the subject up again. He had ‘dumped’ Sue, according to his own script, because she was getting ‘too heavy’. Any minute, he had complained, she was going to use the dreaded C-word.
He liked his carefree bachelor life, and there were thousands of women in the world that he hadn’t had yet. But Joanna had said to him – only once, and casually, but it was enough – that she believed he had dropped Sue out of fear that Sue would drop him first.

The idea nagged at him; and alone and immobile in the hospital there’d been plenty of time to be nagged. Of his numerous previous girlfriends, only Sue had sent a card, only Sue had visited him. He had been half touched, half angry at her attentions. Getting her claws into him while he was vulnerable, he had told himself cynically; but even his angry half didn’t really believe that. He had enjoyed her visits. She didn’t seem to feel the need to be bright and cheery; hadn’t even minded when he was too down to talk to her. On those occasions she had just sat and read the paper for half an hour, and it had been nice simply having her there. He had found himself looking forward to her visits, and had had to force himself not to ask as she left when she would be coming again.

Only as he grew stronger, and his ambivalence about going back to the Job had troubled him more, he had rejected what he saw as a despicable dependency. The idea of him, the randy young copper’s role model, settling down to banal domesticity – Darby and Joan facing each other like Toby jugs across the fireplace – appalled him. Since he left the hospital he had not contacted her. A bit of him had been hurt that she had not contacted him, but mostly he told himself that he was relieved that he didn’t have to go on being grateful to her for rallying round in his time of need.

But if he was honest – which he tried not to be too often – he had to admit that the house had seemed horribly cold and empty when he first returned to it; even since Oedipus had come back from his temporary stay with Bill and Joanna, he had felt lonely in it. Him, lonely! Logic told him that it was just the aftermath of shock. He hadn’t felt up to going out on the pull yet: didn’t want to have to show a stranger his scar. Besides, his nerve had taken a bashing: he had come face to face with his mortality. All those things, he told himself, only made him
feel
that he was lonely. He was still the same Jim Atherton underneath, the old tom-catting free spirit who depended on no-one.