we have to wear our legs down to nubbins. I’ll OK the overtime with Mr Porson, so you can take that look off your face, McLaren.’
‘I haven’t got a look on my face,’ he protested.
‘Oh, no, you’re right, it’s chocolate,’ said Slider. ‘That’s it, boys and girls.’
They all moved away except for Joanna, Atherton and Emily.
‘What are we going to do?’ Joanna said. ‘With all our worldlies stuffed in the car and no home to go to?’
‘We’ll go to an hotel,’ Slider said.
Atherton and Emily exchanged a look. ‘It’s all right,’ she said to him.
‘It makes it look a bit official,’ he said nervously. ‘I don’t want to rush you into anything.’
‘If I remember rightly, I did the rushing. Come on, a friend in need and all that sort of thing.’
‘Shall we leave you two to talk code in peace?’ Joanna said.
‘We don’t want you to go to an hotel,’ Emily translated. ‘There are two bedrooms at Jim’s house, and I don’t mind sharing with him – or more specifically, I don’t mind you knowing I’m sharing with him. I know it makes me look like a fast hussy, but there it is.’
‘Who are we to judge?’ Slider said. ‘If you’re sure?’
‘I’m sure,’ they both said at the same moment, and looked at each other and smiled.
‘Well, thanks,’ Joanna said. ‘It’ll be a lot nicer than an hotel.’
‘I have to go and see Porson,’ Slider said. ‘Why don’t you three go on ahead and I’ll join you later.’
Porson listened gravely to Slider’s exposition. ‘It all sounds all right,’ he said, ‘and, my God, if you’re right this is going to cause a stink.’
‘It’s my betting that it won’t,’ Slider said sadly. ‘They’ll cover up for him, like they did before.’
‘No, laddie, he won’t get away with it this time. You’d have to spin like a dervish in a washing machine to get this one to come out straight. They’ll dump him hard and let him take his knocks, believe me. But we’ve got to have all the evidence, dot every tee, or it’s all deniable.’
‘If we can find out about those shares, to start with . . .’
‘I’ll do a bit of leaning. Anything else?’
‘Reading police – matching Mark’s car with the motorbike damage?’
‘More leaning. Leave it to me. Tower of Pisa job. I suppose Pak’s not come up with anything?’
‘Not yet.’
‘Well, he’s a good lad. He won’t stop until he does. For now, why don’t you go home? You look played out.’
‘Yes, I’m going now.’
‘Hang on, you haven’t got a home to go to, have you?’ Porson said, and he seemed to hesitate on the brink of something.
‘I’m staying with Atherton, sir,’ Slider said. ‘He has a spare room.’
‘Oh, well that’s all right,’ Porson said briskly, and turned away. ‘Off you go, then.’
Slider went, wondering uncomfortably whether the old boy had been about to offer him
Atherton did an enormous stir-fry for quickness’ sake, and the four of them sat around the table companionably, as if they had known each other for years, with the cats teetering on the backs of armchairs, trying to see over peoples’ shoulders, and purring like food mixers. Joanna hoped so much that Atherton and Emily could survive the end of the case and the realisations that were bound to come over her then, because they seemed so right together – as right as Joanna felt with Bill.
It was inevitable they should talk about the case, and a lot of it was rehashing the supposed Waverley B plot, guessing how much money the whole thing was worth, and wondering despairingly how people could be so fixated on money.
‘Because they’ve got nothing else in their lives,’ Slider said.
‘That’s all very well, but Tyler, at least, did have other things in his life, before he destroyed them by his own hand,’ said Atherton.
‘We’ve got to find documentary evidence,’ Slider said. ‘I can’t believe Bates got hold of the only copies. Where would your father keep something that important?’ he asked Emily.
‘In his computer,’ she said with a shrug.
‘He wouldn’t give a copy to anyone? He didn’t send you anything, like a data disc or a memory stick?’
‘I’d have said so if he did,’ she said patiently.
‘What about a friend? Candida Scott-Chatton for instance?’
‘No. He wouldn’t implicate her when it was something as dangerous as this. And she’d have told you, surely, if he gave her something and told her to guard it with her life.’
Atherton looked at her sharply. She was holding the locket, warming it in her hand as she so often did. ‘He did send you
She met his eyes. ‘My birthday present?’
‘Why did he send it to you if he knew you were coming over? He could have given it to you in person.’
‘He wanted me to have it on the day,’ she said.
‘Which was a week ago. And Masseter was killed two weeks ago. Allowing for the post—’
‘You think he sent Emily the locket when he heard Masseter was dead?’ Joanna said. ‘But why? You couldn’t get a data disc in that.’
‘I’d have noticed,’ Emily agreed, with quiet humour.
‘But he did tell you it was very valuable and warned you not to let it out of your sight,’ Atherton persisted.
‘No, he warned me not to lose it. I was the one who decided to wear it all the time. I like it. And it reminds me of him.’ Her eyes filled abruptly with tears. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. Slider passed her across his handkerchief, and she accepted it and blotted her eyes, biting her lips to regain control.
Atherton said, ‘I can’t help thinking that he may have sent you a clue of some sort with it. Did it come in a box?’
‘Yes, a jeweller’s box, in a Jiffy bag. But there was nothing else in it.’
‘I don’t suppose you have the box with you?’
‘Yes, it’s in my case. But honestly, there’s nothing else in it except the card that came with it, and unless you’re suggesting there’s a microdot . . . ?’
‘Well, you never know,’ Atherton said.
‘I do. Where would he get access to the technology to compress all his files into a microdot?’
‘But I’d like to have a look at it, if you don’t mind,’ Atherton said, and she shrugged and went upstairs, returning with an ordinary jeweller’s box about four inches square, in red leatherette. Inside was the usual black velvet bracer, with slits where the chain would have been secured to hold the locket in place, and a square, stiff card with some handwriting on it.
‘You’re right, your dad’s handwriting is terrible,’ Atherton said. ‘What does it say?’
Emily took it back. ‘It says “Happy birthday, darling. I hope you like it. It’s valuable so be sure not to lose it. It will be something to remember me by, even if you’re glad to see the back of me.”’
‘That’s an odd thing to say, isn’t it?’ Atherton said, frowning. ‘Why would you be glad to see the back of him?’
‘Oh, it’s a sort of old joke,’ she said. ‘He didn’t like it when I went to live in the States, because he was going to miss me, and he said it must be because I didn’t like having him hanging around me, spoiling my pitch. A joke about me being a better journalist than him – which wasn’t true. He was the best there was.’
Atherton held out his hand. ‘Would you let me look at it?’
‘There’s nothing in it except a picture of him,’ she said, but she undid the clasp anyway, and handed it across.
Atherton took it, warm from her hand, smooth and pleasant to the touch. It didn’t look old, that was his judgement. There’s a look to old, second-hand gold. This looked quite new. And it didn’t look valuable to him, either – not enough to warrant a warning. It was worth maybe a couple of hundred pounds, not more. He prised it open with a thumbnail, and inside was a photograph of Stonax, smiling and looking rather windblown with that shock of dark hair. The photograph was held in place by a thin oval bezel. He thumbnailed that off, as well, and lifted out the
