Game Over

‘Just kindness,’ Joanna said firmly. ‘He’s a kind person underneath.’

Emily nodded wearily. ‘That’s what I thought. I’m glad I was right.’

Five

To Err is Divine . . .

The basement of Valancy House ran under the whole building so it was very spacious. The caretaker’s flat occupied only part of it: sitting-room, bedroom, bathroom and kitchen, reasonably sized, according to Hart, but dark and depressing, with bars at all the windows, which looked out on to the small yard at the back where the dustbins lived. ‘Still, to get a flat that size in this area, you’d put up with a lot worse,’ she concluded. ‘I reckon Dave Borthwick knows he’s lucky, ’cos to my mind he’d never earn enough if the flat didn’t come with the job.’

‘Not very bright?’

‘Not very anything,’ Hart said, ‘except muscle-bound and ugly. Though I reckon we’ll find he’s well tasty. If he’s not got a record, my arse is an apricot. Sorry, boss.’

‘Think nothing of it,’ Slider said graciously. ‘We’ll put Hollis on it when we get back. Borthwick’s record, I mean, not . . .’

‘Gotcha.’

The rest of the basement was windowless, stone-floored, the walls clad to shoulder height with those glazed brown tiles beloved of Edwardians, the bare bricks painted above with pale green distemper, lit by naked forty-watt bulbs hanging from flexes that were probably the originals. Footsteps echoed down there, and there were distant mysterious groans, thumps and gurgles of pipes, and a monotonous dripping as if an unseen tap somewhere had a faulty washer.

‘I could feel right at home here,’ Hart said chirpily. ‘My school was just like this.’

Part of the space was taken up with the pit of the lift-shaft and the bottom of the stairs. There was an open area around them, a door in the adjacent wall into the flat (battered metal with a massive keyhole) and then various rooms around the perimeter, linked by corridors. Presumably at one time the caretaker had had a lot more to do for the residents than in modern days. One room was evidently the coal-store, for there was a chute leading up to a circular bronze hatch in the pavement above, and a lingering, ghostly smell of coal, though it was swept clean. Next door was an ancient boiler squatting on a concrete dais, though all its pipes had been removed.

‘Must’ve used to run the central heating. They’ve all got individual gas boilers in the flats now,’ Hart said.

In another room was an array of grey metal cupboards housing the fuses and access to the circuits for the whole building. One cupboard, Slider noticed, had a sticker on the front, a white plastic circle with a telephone logo in the centre and the words RING 4 SECURITY around the perimeter.

‘That, presumably, is the security door,’ said Slider.

He tried the door but it was locked. The sticker looked newly applied and did not quite cover an elderly paper sticker underneath, which was triangular rather than round, so its faded, frayed corners just showed.

‘This is what I wanted to show you, guv,’ Hart said, leading him to another room, the one nearest the door to Borthwick’s flat.

There was a massive metal sink in the corner with a single cold tap above it – the source of the dripping sound – and the marks on the walls of various machines and pipes long removed. It looked as though it had once been a laundry, either self-service or for the caretaker or his wife to perform service washes. Or perhaps people had kept servants in the old days. It was an interesting speculation to Slider, who always wanted to know how people had lived in times past, but not nearly as interesting as the object which occupied the centre of the room: a large Triumph motorbike, propped on its foot stand, an oil-stain underneath it, and a tool-kit spread out on a filthy square of canvas beside it.

‘Borthwick’s?’ Slider asked.

‘Yeah. I thought you’d like it,’ said Hart with pleasure.

‘How does he get it out? Not through his flat?’

‘Nah. There’s a door into the yard under the stairs over there. For taking the rubbish out.’

‘Locked?’

‘One of them push-bar jobs. It looks in good nick. But it doesn’t matter, does it?’ She went to the reason for the question. ‘The stairs down to here are open, anyone could come down, and we know the security door wasn’t working.’ She thought a bit more. ‘But why d’you think the murderer might come down here?’

‘Just covering the bases,’ Slider said. ‘You always need to know where the access points are. So, Borthwick’s got a bike, has he?’

‘Yeah,’ said Hart. ‘I wonder if he’s got leathers, an’ all.’

Emily and Joanna had gone to a second cup of tea and a pack of three custard creams. They were still talking (Emily was intelligent about music and interesting about journalism, so the conversation generated itself spontaneously) when April behind the counter, telephone in hand, called across, ‘Mr Slider’s back, love.’

‘Do you mind?’ Joanna said, rising. ‘I want to talk to him.’

‘So do I,’ said Emily.

They got down to the CID room to find new events already in train. Slider hadn’t even got as far as his room. He put his arm round Joanna and kissed her cheek but his attention was on Norma Swilley, at her desk and on the phone.

Atherton, coming up beside Emily, explained. ‘It’s not about your dad, it’s another case.’ And to Joanna, ‘Someone’s using the mobile that Bates called on this morning.’

‘Really? Then if you can get a trace on it, you might catch him?’

Slider glanced at her. ‘In theory. But in practice—’ He broke off as Swilley looked up.

‘Boss,’ she said, with a shadow of puzzlement in her eyes, ‘Mick Hutton says he hasn’t had an official request yet to monitor that number. Not from any of the SOs. No-one has.’

That was strange. Wouldn’t they be eager to follow up the only lead they had on a wanted, dangerous, jailbreak master criminal? But there was no time to wonder about it.

‘It’s their loss and our opportunity. Let’s get after him. Mackay, McLaren – who’s next door from uniform?’

‘Renker and Gallon.’

‘Good.’ They were both big, hefty lads. ‘Get ’em. Norma, stay on the line with Hutton and liaise with us through Atherton.’

‘You’re going?’ Atherton asked, seeing Joanna’s eyes widen. Slider gave him a silencing look. Of course he was going!

Fathom spoke up excitedly. ‘Guv, let me come.’

Atherton, still holding Slider’s eyes, said, ‘He might not be alone.’

Slider nodded. ‘Come on, then,’ he said to Fathom, heading for the door through which the other two had already disappeared. ‘But do exactly as you’re told.’

‘Yes, guv,’ Fathom said, grinning in triumph as he followed.

Into the small silence that followed, Norma said, ‘He’s still on the line.’

‘What is all this?’ Emily asked.

Atherton had gone to his phone to establish the link with Slider, so Joanna answered.

‘Come over here, out of the way, and I’ll tell you about it,’ she said.

She found her hands were shaking a little. She so badly wanted Bates caught; but Slider had gone himself, and a cornered fox was unpredictable.

The time seemed to drag by horribly, but in fact they were not away very long. When Slider came back into the room Joanna’s heart clenched with relief; only afterwards did she realise with sickening disappointment that his rapid return meant it had been a false alarm.

‘You didn’t get him?’

‘Oh, we got him all right,’ he said grimly. ‘“Him” being a fourteen-year-old boy.’ He held up the evidence bag with the mobile in it. ‘Jason Clifton. Found it lying on the front garden wall of a house, partly hidden by the privet