Fell Purpose

yet from his own experience there were always some decent families among the low-lifers in these places, desperately clinging on to standards, doing their best and getting precious little help from the authorities. It was possible young Mr Carmichael was one of the good guys, and his outburst in the Wildings’ front parlour was from frustration at being judged on his appearance and postcode. On the other hand, there was a better than even chance he was one of the bad hats, and there was nothing more attractive at this stage of an investigation than a bad hat. It gave you something to follow up, a mote in the otherwise clear eye of all the unknowns.

‘Reading’s a long way,’ Connolly said. ‘What was Mike Carmichael doing over this way?’

‘Well, he had this motorbike,’ Mrs Wilding said, drying her eyes again. ‘He could get about on that all right.’

‘What I meant was, how did Zellah come to meet him?’

‘Oh, I see. Well, he had some friends who shared a house in Notting Hill, and one of them was Chloe Paulson’s brother. That time he brought Zellah home, they’d all been out together, a whole crowd of boys and girls. You know how they do. It wasn’t that way when I was young,’ she added in a complaining voice. ‘You went out in couples, or maybe a foursome, none of this all hanging around together in a gang. It just makes it harder to know what’s going on, to my mind. I mean, it isn’t natural for boys and girls to be friends like that, is it? They’re supposed to date and fall in love. You don’t marry someone you’re friendly with. But I suppose it was better for Zellah, in a way, because her father would only let her go out in a crowd, so she wouldn’t have met any boys at all otherwise.’

‘Did she see this boy more than once?’

‘No, Daddy forbade it. But she seemed to go off him anyway. She didn’t mention him ever again.’

If it was me, Connolly thought, I wouldn’t have mentioned him, even if I was seeing him. A girl had to learn to manipulate in order to get her way. Anyway, from what the doc said it was obvious that Miss Zellah had been getting the ride off some fella or other, whatever her parents thought. ‘Do you think you could find me that photograph now?’ she said. She would have a quick look round the bedroom while the oul’ one was getting it; see if there was a diary or any letters.

‘What a life,’ Atherton said, when they had given Slider their various accounts. ‘I wouldn’t blame her for cutting a rip with biker boy.’

‘It’s the devil when parents try to relive their lives through their children,’ Slider mused. ‘There’s father wanting her to be an academic success and probably end up with her own business, while mother just wants to relive her youth and beauty vicariously, and probably hopes her daughter will be a model and marry a film star. Impossible expectations.’

‘And what about being forbidden to go out with boys?’ Connolly said indignantly. ‘Janey Mac, she was seventeen.’

‘Right,’ Atherton said. ‘You can’t keep ’em down on the farm after they’ve seen Paree. What would you have done?’ he asked Connolly.

‘Pretend to go along with it and run mad behind their backs,’ Connolly answered. ‘If they want to carry on like Ignatius Loyola, what can they expect?’

‘Tyrants make liars,’ Atherton said.

‘Well, that’s one way to look at it,’ Slider said, from the point of view of a father. ‘But was that what Zellah was doing?’

‘She was out on the Scrubs late at night when she should have been somewhere else,’ Connolly pointed out.

‘We know she was rebelling,’ Atherton said, ‘because of what Freddie Cameron said about her having had a lot of sex. And I must say she must have had considerable moxie to defy her dad like that. I wouldn’t like to try it.’

‘Moxie?’ Slider queried vaguely, out of a train of thought.

‘Balls. Spunk. Chutzpah.’

‘I know what it means. I just don’t know why you’re using it.’

‘I’m a Red Sox fan.’

‘You are not.’ Slider shook his head. ‘Try to be duller,’ he advised.

‘I can’t help it. I spent my formative years at the pictures.’

Connolly suppressed a grin. This was why she wanted to get into the CID. They were all pure mad in the Department. ‘Sir,’ she said to Slider, ‘I’ve been thinking about the clothes she was wearing.’

‘Yes, I’ve been wondering about that too,’ Slider said. ‘I wouldn’t have thought her parents – her father, anyway – would have let her go out showing that much flesh.’

‘No, sir. That’s what I thought. And I had a good oul’ look in her wardrobe while I was in her bedroom, and there’s nothing else like that in there. It’s all Sunday School stuff, skirts and ganzies your mammy would buy you. I’m wondering if she borrowed those clothes from her friend.’

‘Sophy Whatsit? It’s a thought. And if she did, then Sophy must have been in on the whole thing,’ Slider said. ‘Which would mean she’d know who it was Zellah was seeing that night.’

‘It’s obvious the Sophy thing was a front,’ Atherton said. ‘Either for some kind of group outing to a place the Wildings wouldn’t approve of, or for Zellah to go out with a person ditto ditto.’

‘That Mike Carmichael sounds the lad,’ Connolly said. ‘The Woodley South’s a total kip. Drugs, stolen cars, smuggled fags and booze. Unemployment about ninety-eight per cent. What’s a skanger from a place like that doing, hanging around the likes of Zellah Wilding?’

‘Yes,’ said Slider. ‘I do wonder what the connection with the smart girls is. How did he know Sophy Whatsit’s brother and his friends?’

‘Oh, I think we can all guess that,’ Atherton said wryly. ‘What do larging-it youngsters do with their money these days?’

‘We can all guess,’ Slider said, ‘but I’d prefer to know.’

‘I take it an early interview with biker boy is a priority,’ Atherton said. ‘The hood from the ’hood.’

‘First of all,’ Slider went on, ‘we need to speak to this Sophy girl. She may be the one person who knows where Zellah was going and with whom.’

‘Do you want me to do it?’ Atherton said.

‘No, I’ll go myself,’ Slider said, stretching his shoulders. ‘I need to move. I’ll take Hart with me. They’ll think she’s cool.’

‘I’m cool,’ Atherton protested. Connolly made a snorting noise, and he turned on her sharply to find her face rigidly controlled. ‘What?’

‘Nothing, sir,’ she said.

‘I think PC Connolly thinks you’re more hip than cool,’ Slider explained kindly. ‘Anyway, you two have got your notes to write up. Get the photograph copied and circulated. Oh, and you’d better arrange for the Wildings to identify the body. Get them to come in, and take their statements down, such as they are.’

‘We can send someone there for that,’ Atherton said.

‘It’ll do them good to get out of the house,’ Slider said, and Connolly gave him a pleased look for having thought of it. ‘What did you think of the father?’

‘Obsessive,’ Atherton said. ‘Transferred all his love to his little princess when he realized he’d married a pudding.’

‘Right,’ said Slider. ‘On the principle that it’s always the person nearest what dunnit, get him to write down where he was and what he was doing.’

‘That poor man?’ Connolly protested. ‘He was heartbroken!’

‘For elimination purposes,’ Slider said. ‘Always bread and butter first, before you can have any cake.’

Mad as bicycles, Connolly thought admiringly.

FOUR

Bedlam Sans Mercy

‘So, what’s the griff with this one, guv?’ Hart asked, deeply gratified to have been chosen to accompany the