Fell Purpose

You’d tell me if you were ill or anything?’

‘No, I’m fine son. Don’t worry. But I’m getting on a bit now, and the garden’s getting a bit much for me. I don’t need that much land. It’s near-on four acres, you know.’

‘Is it?’

‘Well, I bought the fields either side of the lane. Thought at one time I might keep a few chickens, sell the eggs, but I never got round to it. I just let ’em for grazing. But you’re busy,’ he collected himself. ‘You don’t want to hear all this. Fact is, it’s a long way from anywhere and a bit isolated, so I’m thinking it’s time to be selling up. I just wanted to be sure you didn’t mind.’

‘Why should I mind?’

‘Well, it’s your childhood home. Lot of memories. You might’ve wanted it for yourself. Holiday house or some such.’

‘I’d love to live in it, but it’s far too far to commute. And it would be wonderful for a holiday cottage, but I can’t afford it. I can’t even afford a flat for Jo and me and the baby. But if you sell, where will you live? Oh damn.’ He added the last as Mackay, one of his firm, appeared in the doorway with a look of triumph on his face.

‘What’s that?’ his father said.

‘Someone wants me.’

‘That’s all right, son. I won’t keep you. Just wanted to be sure you didn’t mind if I sold it. We’ll talk about it some other time.’

‘I’ll give you a ring. As soon as I can. It won’t be tonight—’

‘Don’t you worry,’ his father said soothingly. ‘I know how it is. We’ll catch up when you’ve got this case out of the way. Don’t worry till then. Everything’s all right, I promise.’

‘All right. Thanks, Dad.’

‘God bless, son.’ And he was gone.

Mackay had been down at the Black Lion that morning, canvassing the staff, with a copy of Zellah’s photo to show round. ‘I’ve got something, guv,’ he said.

‘Somebody saw Zellah?’ Slider said.

‘Well, guv, I wasn’t that hopeful, if she was picked up from the car park and didn’t go inside. But as it happened, one of the barmen recognised her photo right away. Course, she is good- looking, the sort that turns heads,’ he added. ‘Anyway, this bloke, name of – hang on, I wrote it down.’ He pulled out his notebook and read, ‘Vedran Kosavac. He’s from Croatia.’

‘No fooling,’ Slider said drily.

‘Speaks perfect English, though,’ Mackay added. ‘Anyway, apparently he was on duty Sunday night and Zellah comes into the pub and looks around, like she’s looking for somebody. He notices her right away because she’s such a babe, but also because he thinks she looks a bit young, and the management is very hot on not allowing under- age drinking. He hates having to ask borderline cases for ID because half the time they haven’t got any, and there’s a row, and it all takes time and they’re busy anyway. I’m telling you all this,’ he added, looking at Slider, ‘to show he really did remember her.’

‘Fine, go on.’

‘Yes, guv. Well, after a bit she comes up to the bar and says excuse me, and he’s just bracing himself to ask her for ID, when she asks him where the Ladies is. So he’s all relieved. She goes off in that direction, and a few minutes later he sees her come past again and go out into the front car park. So he reckons she must have been drinking out there – because they have those bench-table things and there were a lot of customers out there that night – and someone else was buying her drinks, which was all right as far as he was concerned, as long as he didn’t have to worry about it.’

‘So did he see who she was with?’

‘No, guv, he never went out there and he never saw her again.’

‘So we’re no further on than we were,’ Slider said. ‘All we know is that she went to the Black Lion as she said she was going to. We still have to find someone who saw who she went off with.’

‘No, guv, it’s better than that,’ Mackay said. ‘They’ve got a security camera trained on the car park, and when I told the manager what we wanted to know, he took me in the tape room and we went through the videos. Luckily they keep them a week before they tape over them.’ He drew a video cassette out of his pocket and laid it on Slider’s desk with the air of a successful conjuror.

Slider’s shoulders went down and he sighed with satisfaction. ‘You weren’t kidding when you said you had something.’

‘Well, the quality’s pants, like they are, but you can see it’s Zellah all right, though it’s only her back view as she comes out of the pub. She stands around for a bit, looking round, fidgeting, like she’s nervous or impatient. And then this motorbike comes in.’

‘A motorbike,’ Slider breathed. It was almost too good to be true. A car might have been anyone, but a motorbike was almost certain to be their best candidate for suspicion.

‘With this bloke on it in a leather jacket,’ Mackay went on, ‘and it looks like jeans. Zellah runs straight over to him. And she gets on the back and he drives off with her.’

‘And can you see that it’s Carmichael? I know these tapes are poor quality, but sometimes they can be enhanced enough to—’

‘Well, guv, you can’t really see his face. He never takes his helmet off.’

Slider made a whimpering noise.

‘But you can see part of the number plate,’ Mackay said, like a comforting father. ‘We might be able to enhance that enough to get a partial reg number.’

‘All right, Mackay, thanks. You’ve done well. And at least we know she went off with a biker who we can assume for working purposes was Carmichael, even if we can’t prove it. It gives us a handle.’

‘I could go back tonight and see if any of the customers saw her getting on the bike,’ Mackay offered. ‘Someone might have seen him well enough to identify him.’

‘What beer is it there?’ Slider asked innocently.

‘Adnams, Theakston’s Black Bull, Bombardier . . .’ Mackay stopped abruptly as he realized he had given himself away.

‘I wouldn’t put you through that again,’ Slider said kindly. ‘You’ve done your duty, lad. If a return visit is necessary, I’ll make someone else take the strain.’

‘Brought you a sandwich, guv,’ Hart said cheerily as she appeared in his doorway, with Atherton behind her. ‘I bet to meself you hadn’t eaten.’

‘You’re not my mother,’ Slider said repressingly.

Hart was unabashed. ‘Have you seen the time? We stopped down Mike’s and got you a sausage sandwich, wiv termata sauce, the way you like ’em. And a jam doughnut from Fraser’s on the way back. And I’ll get you a proper tea from the canteen, if you like.’

Slider weakened. ‘In a proper cup.’

‘Of course, guv,’ Hart said. ‘How long have I been here?’

‘So what’s all this excessive thoughtfulness about? Have you done something wrong? Or is it bad news?’

‘Neever. It’s a celebration. We got two sightings at the fairground. Zellah and Mike the Bike. And bloody hard work it was, too.’

‘That’s why you get the big money. Fairground people unwilling to talk?’

‘You’d get more chatter out of a depressed Trappist monk,’ Atherton said. ‘But the rifle range proprietor had a grudge against Romanies, not being one of them, and was bursting to co-operate. He ID’d our couple from the photographs, said they had a row and parted the ways.’

‘And then this old woman, with a van right at the back of the lot, said she’d seen a couple quarrelling, and the female half of it walked off across the Scrubs alone,’ Hart concluded. ‘She wouldn’t look at the photos, though.’

Slider told them Mackay’s news. ‘Can’t ID the biker, but it’s definitely Zellah, so we can assume Carmichael picked her up by prior arrangement and took her to the fairground.’

‘Where they had fun until a row blew up,’ Atherton said.