Fell Purpose

and dad being all proper and churchy. She told Sophy once the only reason she stayed with them was she wanted to finish school and she didn’t have any money so she had to.’

‘In that case, why did her father believe she really would leave?’

Chloe looked blank. ‘I dunno,’ she said at last. ‘I suppose she just kind of made him believe it.’

‘Through force of personality, you mean?’

‘Yeah, like that,’ Chloe said

‘So you and Zellah and Sophy go around together a lot?’

‘Yeah, we’re, like, mates. We’re tight. We’ve had, like, this gang since the fourth year. There used to be another girl as well, Frieda, Frieda Mossman, but she got all stupid when we started going out with boys, so we dropped her.’

‘You mean she didn’t approve?’

Eye-roll and jerk. ‘Couldn’t pull one herself, so she was jealous. Said she was saving it for marriage. Sophy said “nobody’s going to marry you, girl, so you might as well spend it while you can”, and she got all upset and, like, stormed off.’

‘That was pretty cruel, wasn’t it?’

‘Oh, Sophy doesn’t care what she says. She’s great. Frieda shouldn’t have been so sensitive. But she was a bit fat and she has this frizzy hair.’

Slider couldn’t decide if this was justification for the nastiness, or the reason for being over-sensitive. He was fascinated, though appalled, at this glimpse below the gleaming surface of these girls. In the kitchen he saw Connolly deep in conversation with Mrs Paulson, with Mrs Paulson doing the chin-work, but he could also see the coffee was ready and only needed pouring, so he had to get on.

‘Tell me about your brother,’ he said.

‘Which one?’

‘The one who lives in Notting Hill.’

‘What, Oliver? He’s cool.’

‘What does he do?’

‘He’s a foreign analyst for a firm of brokers. City stuff, you know. He earns shedloads of money. I mean, him and his mates are all making out like bandits! He shares this great flat in Lansdowne Crescent with these three other guys – you should see it! It’s gorgeous. And he wears these beautiful suits. Boss, Armani. Totally great threads. He had this girlfriend Tara who was actually an earl’s daughter. They’ve broken it off now, though. Sophy says Tara’s a dorky name, anyway. She says it’s, like, a name you give a pony. But Oliver never had trouble pulling girls anyway. He’s gorgeous looking, and he has, like, this great sense of humour.’

‘So how does he know Mike Carmichael? It seems an unlikely sort of friendship, given Mike’s background.’

The round face was innocent of guile. ‘Oh, I don’t think he knows him that well. He just lives in the neighbourhood. I think they met at a party of a mate of his.’

‘And how did Zellah meet him?’

‘Round Oliver’s. Zellah and Sophy used to go up Oliver’s on Saturdays after ballet class and I’d meet them there. I don’t do ballet. This one Saturday Oliver was taking us all to lunch. He does that sometimes. He’s great. And Mike was there, so he came with us. Mike’s all right,’ she added, free of charge. ‘Sophy doesn’t like him, but she’s a snob. Mike’s a laugh. I could see right off Zellah liked him. Sophy said that’s because of Zellah’s chav blood. It takes one to know one, she said. But I reckon she fancied him herself, Sophy did, only you could see it was Zellah he was into. It, like, pissed her off, Sophy, so she never had a good word to say for Mike after that. But I don’t think she would have gone out with him if he had asked her,’ she concluded, ‘so I don’t know what she had to get snarky about.’

‘Do you know Mike’s address?’

‘No, but I know he’s got this flat in Ladbroke Grove, over this cool shop that sells, like, tarot cards and joss sticks and mystic books and stuff. I’d love to have a flat over a shop. It’s so cool.’ She returned from her dream to ask, ‘Why d’you want to know about Mike? Zellah’s not seen him in months.’

‘Oh, we have to talk to everyone who knew her. You never know what you might find out.’

She observed him with interest. ‘You don’t think he killed her, do you?’

‘I don’t think anything yet. I have to gather the facts first. Why, do you?’

‘Me? I don’t even know the bloke. Well, hardly. It would be, like, cool, though, knowing a murderer.’

Slider ended the interview and excused himself. He could take, like, no more.

Slider was comfortable with Connolly beside him in the car. She exuded the same sort of confidence that Swilley always had, but with the addition of something of her own that was relaxed and easy, which made her good with distraught victims and agitated villains. Sergeant Paxman had the same sort of quality, only developed over a longer career than Connolly’s. Nicholls had described him as a tranquil stream, but Slider saw him more as a black hole into which all over-wrought emotions were sucked, leaving peace and quiet behind.

‘You’re not related to Sergeant Paxman, are you?’ he asked her now, idly.

‘No, sir. You don’t think I look like him?’

‘Hardly,’ he said, with a sideways glance.

‘I like him, though. I always like being on his relief. And . . .’

‘Go on.’

‘No, I don’t want to bang me own drum.’

‘Oh, don’t be coy.’

‘He said he’d be sorry to lose me if I did get into the Department.’ She turned a wistful face to him. ‘Do you think there’s a chance I could? I mean, there’s a vacancy, right enough?’

‘Because DC Anderson isn’t coming back?’ Anderson had been on secondment to an SO for over a year, and Slider had recently heard that it was being made permanent. It left him even shorter-handed than usual.

‘Yes, sir. And then, if Kathleen doesn’t come back . . .’

Slider had never heard anyone call Swilley ‘Kathleen’, and it took him a moment to realise who they were talking about. Everyone on his firm called her Norma because she was a better man than they were – so much so that she didn’t even mind the nickname. Odd to think of her now doing something so essentially womanly as having a baby. ‘Don’t you think she will?’

‘Oh, I haven’t heard anything,’ Connolly said, ‘but it must be hard to leave your baba every day. And then there’d be the late evenings and the weekends and everything. I can’t see how she’d crack it.’

‘Her mother lives nearby. I understand she’d take care of the baby.’

‘I didn’t mean physically. I meant how she’d crack it emotionally.’

‘So when you marry and have children you’ll leave the Job?’

‘I’m never going to get married. And I definitely won’t have kids,’ she said, with a sureness that intrigued him. ‘You’ve only got to look at Mrs Paulson to see where that carry-on leads.’

He wanted to know whether she didn’t think that would mean a very lonely future, but he couldn’t go probing into his people’s private lives. He’d had enough of that with Atherton’s serial involvements, particularly when he’d been dating one of Joanna’s friends and breaking her heart.

He said, ‘How did you get on with Mrs Paulson?’

‘I hardly needed to ask her anything – she was desperate to talk. Bored mental being a stay-at-home mammy. Mostly she went on about being worried about Chloe – the shock from Zellah being murdered and the fear that it would happen to her kid as well. She’s convinced it’s a serial killer targeting schoolgirls. She says that Sophy Cooper-Hutchinson’s the driving force of the group, and it was her led Chloe and Zellah astray. She’s sorry about Zellah. Thought Zellah was a good girl, couldn’t understand why the Wildings let her hang out with Sophy.’

‘If Sophy’s so bad, why does she let Chloe associate with her?’

‘I wondered that, sir – hinted around it as tactfully as I could. But it seems that the Paulsons and Cooper- Hutchinsons have been best pals for years, ever since their oldest sons were at school together. Joint family holidays, outings, dinner parties and all that carry-on. The children know each other from the cradle. So no criticism of the Cooper-Hutchinsons possible, and no way to keep the children apart. But I gathered that Mrs Paulson is a bit feeble, anyway, doesn’t feel she has any influence over Chloe, no right to tell her what to do. She was critical of Mr