phlegmy coughs, she looked like an old bag.
Slider showed his badge and told them who he was. ‘I’m looking for Mike Carmichael,’ he said.
Lennie looked cautiously at Lilly, who said, ‘I don’t know any Mike. So you can piss off out of my house. What’s
Fathom looked taken aback and she went into raucous laughter. ‘Your face!’
Lennie looked embarrassed and said, ‘Can it, Lilly, for fuck’s sake. It’s the police.’
‘Oh, don’t you think coppers do it? I’ve had plenty of them in the past, I can tell you. You want names?’ She leered at Slider.
‘Just tell us where Mike is, and we’ll leave you in peace.’
‘I don’t know any Mike. So get out.’
‘Your son, Mike. Michael Carmichael.’ Slider had seen the candle, spoon and glass straw on the mantelpiece, the tackle for chasing the dragon, which was evidence enough to arrest the pair of them – not that he wanted to. He gestured to McLaren to pick up the piece of silver foil from the floor – obviously the wrap the H had come in. McLaren picked it up and showed it to them.
‘There’ll be enough traces on this to show what was in it,’ he said. ‘We’ve got a field test kit in the car. Possession of scag is a serious offence – and what’ll we find if we search a bit more?’
It was enough to alarm Lennie. ‘Mike’s not here,’ he blurted.
‘Shut your mouth, you stupid little shit,’ Lilly growled at him.
‘Look, it’s her, not me. I don’t do scag.’
‘I’ll kill you, you fucking rat!’
‘You let me go, and I’ll tell you.’
‘Tell me, then,’ Slider said calmly. ‘Where can we find Michael Carmichael?’
Lilly flung herself at her lover with an incoherent scream, and Fathom leapt into action, throwing himself at her and grabbing her arms. McLaren had to go to help him, while Slider gestured Lennie back as he jumped out of bed, and warned him not to try to leg it. Fathom and McLaren were at a disadvantage with Lilly, since they had to fight fair, try not to hurt her, and keep from being bitten or scratched – God knew how toxic she was. McLaren could have felled her with a tap to the chin, but they weren’t allowed to do that. After a bit she got tired of the business and stopped struggling, otherwise they could have been fighting for hours. She slumped back on the bed, coughing. They kept hold of her arms, panting, but she said, ‘Let me go. I gotta find my fag, before the bed goes up.’ And when they let her go, she gave herself to rummaging about for the lit cigarette that had fallen among the sheets in the struggle.
Slider said, ‘All right, Lennie. Where’s Mike?’
In the interval, the naked youth had put on a pair of sweat pants from the floor, and now was standing with his arms wrapped round his chest, watching, his eyes flitting about as if calculating the odds of escape.
‘You’ll let me go?’ he said now.
‘I promise.’
‘Well, he ain’t here. He don’t live here no more. He’s got these friends up town – rich kids. He hangs about with them now. We’re not good enough for him,’ he added scathingly.
‘Where does he live?’
‘I don’t know the address. It’s in Notting Hill, that’s all I know. He wouldn’t tell me.’
‘Shut your face, you little shit!’ Lilly said angrily. ‘I’m warning you.’
He looked at her with a wrench of contempt. ‘I’ve had it with you, you rotten slag. You’re always calling me names. I don’t owe you nothing.’ He looked at Slider. ‘Mike’s got it good up there, selling coke to these rich kids for big money. Well, why wouldn’t he? Better than knocking stuff out round here for half the price. He doesn’t like me and I don’t like him. You should hear what he said about me and Lilly. He thinks he’s too good for the likes of us now. Well, stuff him! And stuff you, Lilly! You and your skanky son. I’m not getting in trouble for either of you.’
Lilly screamed at him incoherently, and Fathom and McLaren had to restrain her again, while Slider was having to persuade Lennie not to deprive them of his company just yet, which was how he excused himself afterwards for not having heard anything from outside. But suddenly all the ruckus stopped as if by magic. Someone had appeared in the doorway. Slider turned to see a young man in leather jacket and jeans standing there.
Lilly saw him too, stopped writhing, and cried urgently, ‘Mikey, have you got the stuff? Have you got the shit for me, Mikey?’
The man disappeared with amazing speed. Slider flung himself after him, feeling, rather than seeing, McLaren coming behind.
But the fleeing man had jumped astride a powerful motorbike parked at the kerb. Because the engine was hot, it caught at once. Slider only managed to touch a sleeve with fingertips as he swerved out of reach. McLaren passed him running as the bike roared up the road, but he stopped after a few yards, seeing it was hopeless. The bike turned the corner and was out of sight.
Slider ran to the car. There wasn’t the faintest chance of catching him with that sort of start, but the gesture had to be made. The others piled in, and he drove off with a squeal of rubber.
‘Anyone get the number?’ McLaren said.
No one had.
‘It was a Harley Davidson,’ Fathom said.
‘Yeah, we got that,’ McLaren said witheringly.
‘But he must be making big money, to have a bike like that,’ Fathom offered.
‘Yeah,’ said McLaren, ‘and better than that, we know we’re on to something, or else why did he run?’
SIX
One Ring Leads to a Mother
Sergeant ‘Nutty’ Nicholls, the handsome, polyphiloprogenitive Scot from the far north-west, took the trouble to come upstairs to Slider’s office from the front desk to report that there was a woman waiting to see him. ‘She says she’s your victim’s headmistress.’
‘Oh? Well, I’d better see her. She might have an insight to share. What’s she like?’
‘Posh. I doubt she’s ever seen the inside of a polis station before. She spoke to Harris ve-ry slo-owly to be sure the puir heathen understood what she was saying.’
‘We’d better not slap her in an interview room, then,’ Slider said. ‘Can you get someone to wheel her up here?’
‘My thought exactly. She’s the sort that’d tell on ye in a minute. Years of working with children warps your mind. It’s a bad business, this, Bill,’ he went on, suddenly serious. ‘With six girls of my own, I hate it like fire. Any leads yet?’
‘Not really. But we’ve got everyone out asking questions, and someone will have seen something. They always do.’
‘Aye. Well,’ he sighed, ‘not to be suggesting anything, but I don’t know if you knew that Ronnie Oates is back in circulation.’
‘The Acton Strangler?’ Slider said, and then distracted himself. ‘I can’t believe we’ve got a serial killer called Oates.’
‘God has a strange sense of humour,’ Nicholls acknowledged. ‘But I’d remind ye that he’s never killed anyone.’
‘I beg his pardon,’ Slider said. Oates had indecently assaulted five women, and although the assaults themselves had been fairly minor, he had a proclivity for choking his sexual partners during the act, which had eventually got him into trouble when one of them complained. It had also finally brought him to the notice of the press, who could not resist giving him the sobriquet. ‘What did he get last time?’
‘Four years. He was a good boy and got out after eighteen months. That was a couple of months ago, and Arthur told me when we swapped over that he’s been seen around East Acton again, where his mother lives.’
