Fell Purpose

‘And it’s fingermarks, not fingerprints,’ he addressed the closed door conversationally. Frantic thrush sobbing in darkness. So unhappy? Not the nuts-to-you rebel Sophy described? There was something about the words that stuck, he thought, opening the front door to let himself out. She had a talent. And the nude drawings were beautiful.

Atherton, perched on Slider’s windowsill, his favourite pose for a bunny, still looked immaculate at the end of a long hot day, where Slider felt grubby and rumpled. He had crossed his ankles and was contemplating with satisfaction the fraction of silk sock that was revealed. ‘Interesting,’ he said, when Slider had finished. ‘I wish we hadn’t got Ronnie Oates, now. We can’t really run three suspects at once, and Oates is so much more likely.’

‘Likely?’ McLaren said, leaning against the door. ‘Try definite.’

‘We’re getting people ringing in with sightings,’ Connolly said, ‘now he’s been on the telly. I’m keeping a log and sorting out the most likely ones, but it looks as though he was at the fair, guv. Three people have said they saw him there.’

‘I expect people will have seen him everywhere from Glasgow Central to Piccadilly Circus,’ Slider said.

‘Yes, sir, and if it was only the one I’d have discounted it. But three separate witnesses? And,’ she added quickly to stop anyone thinking that was a real question, ‘the barman in the North Pole said he was in there drinking that evening, and the North Pole is only across the road from the fair.’

‘That’s a better identification,’ Atherton told her kindly. ‘Passing someone in the crowd is one thing, but facing someone sitting at a bar for a couple of hours . . .’

‘That’s what I was trying to say,’ Connolly said with a faint look of annoyance.

‘Don’t sweat it, love,’ Hart said. ‘He’s just trying to bring you up right. Part of his seduction technique – he thinks correcting people is erotic.’

‘I thought you understood by now that I’m no longer in the market,’ Atherton said loftily.

Hart grinned. ‘Yeah, it must be queer having to turn women down, eh, Jim?’ She winked at Connolly. ‘The nearest he ever got to saying “no” to a woman was, “not now, we’re landing”.’

‘Man was never meant to be monogamous,’ McLaren offered.

‘Or in your case,’ Hart turned on him, ‘even ogamous.’

‘Do they always go on like this, sir?’ Connolly appealed to Slider.

‘I let them let off steam now and then,’ he said. ‘Meanwhile, let’s you and I have a sensible conversation. Did you get anywhere with the neighbours?’

She consulted her notebook. ‘It was the man at number six that took the film, sir, and sent it to the BBC. He’s retired, ill-health, so not much to do but watch his neighbours out of the window. He was a bit excited about Ronnie Oates coming back to his mum’s. Pretended to be angry about it,’ she said, lifting her eyes to Slider’s, ‘but you could see it was the best thing in his life for years. So when he saw the squad car he grabbed his camera phone and started filming.’

‘But on the night in question?’ Slider prompted her.

‘He saw Ronnie go out about lunchtime, come back in about three to half past, and go out again about eight. But he didn’t see him come back in. Said he went to bed about half-eleven.’

‘He wasn’t watching out the window all that time?’ said Hart.

‘No, but he said the walls of those houses are so thin you can hear someone coming in, especially if they slam the door, which Ronnie does, and he didn’t hear him come in. So if you allow for him dozing off, that means he probably didn’t come in before midnight.’

‘Getting the truth out of Ronnie won’t be easy,’ Atherton said.

‘That’s why I’ve left him to get comfortable and relax,’ Slider said. ‘The less he thinks, the more likely we are to get the truth. All right, we’ve got the watch set up on Carmichael’s flat, we’ve got Ronnie tucked up for the night. We’ll need a statement from the barman at the North Pole—’

‘Sir, I live out that way. I could do it on my way home,’ Connolly said.

‘All right, do so. Anything else?’

‘You thought about questioning the Wilding neighbours,’ Atherton said. ‘In support of my theory.’

‘It’s hardly a theory,’ Slider said. ‘More a wild stab in the dark.’

‘We’ve investigated a few of those,’ Atherton nodded.

‘Yeah, Sat’dy night down the Shepherd’s Bush Road,’ McLaren said. ‘Outside the Jesters Club. I hate bloody knives.’

‘And they’re always bloody,’ Atherton finished. ‘But to return to our moutons, which is to say Wilding – in the interests of being thorough, as someone we know and revere once said . . .’

Slider remembered, uneasily, the drawings, the poem, the corner of white sticking out from the mattress. You could only see it when you were sitting above it, as he had been. Whoever put it back that way would not have realized it was showing. Even so, would Zellah have been careless, when she was taking care to hide her secret life? She had drawn the cantering horse naked, too, he remembered, running free, without even a head collar. Had her father done more than clip her wings?

‘All right, you can question the neighbours. But for God’s sake be subtle about it. And don’t let the press see you. The last thing we want is to start public speculation about it.’

‘The press are having a field day with the Acton Strangler,’ Atherton said. ‘They won’t be looking for any other explanation.’

‘I dunno why we are,’ McLaren said. ‘Have you seen the Standard, guv? They’ve got an interview with a geezer ’at shared a cell with Ronnie in the Scrubs. Claims he was talking about getting his revenge on the establishment when he got out, and offing a posh girl.’ There was a chorus of protest. ‘All right,’ McLaren said, unabashed, ‘even if he didn’t use the word “establishment”, there’s no reason he couldn’t’ve said something like that. It’s just as likely as not. And there she is, dead. What more do you want?’

‘World peace,’ Atherton enumerated. ‘The perfect Yorkshire pudding—’

‘And lipstick that don’t come off on your glass,’ Hart concluded.

TEN

Stupid Like a Fox

Slider had a bad night, too tired to sleep, his mind revolving uselessly round the facts and speculations, trying to make sense of them, and interrupted constantly by disjointed images that seemed terribly significant in the dead of night, but whose meaning eluded his grasp. He was almost glad when young George woke up and began crying. It wasn’t like him: he was usually a good sleeper. Perhaps it was the start of another tooth coming through. Or perhaps he had picked up his father’s restlessness.

Joanna stirred, and he told her to go back to sleep. ‘I’ll see to him.’ She murmured and sank back instantly into her warm slumber. Slider got up, collected the baby from the cot at the foot of their bed, and carried him out to the kitchen, where he at once became wide awake, intrigued by the novelty of being up at this hour and fully intending to do the situation justice. After a lively session involving drinks of water, half a banana Slider found in the fruit bowl, and a scientific investigation of the contents of every tin on the kitchen counter (tea, coffee beans, rice, lentils, pasta shells, and – good Lord, Father, what’s this? – didn’t know they were here – rusks!) the scion of the house consented to settle down on the sofa in the living room and be read to out of his favourite book, which Slider had dubbed ‘The Three Little Pigs In Escrow’. And it was here that Joanna discovered them in the morning, curled up together and fast asleep. To her fell the unhappy duty of waking up her beloved and telling him he was late.

Slider drove to work with that detached, arm’s-length-from-reality feeling you get after a broken night. He told himself he did some of his best thinking in that condition, and himself was far enough gone to believe it. He hadn’t had time for breakfast at home, so he sent for a bacon butty from the canteen and consumed it while he did his essential morning paperwork. Then, a little fortified (because under relentless pressure from the troops the canteen had at last got the bacon butties perfected) he went down to conduct his interview with Ronnie Oates.

Nicholls was on duty. ‘Ronnie had a quiet night,’ he reported.

‘More than I did.’