Fell Purpose

don’t take the bloom off the peach.’

‘That’s what you call a peach?’ Slider said derisively, and peeled off from him as they hit the corridor. ‘I have to go and see Mr Porson.’

SEVENTEEN

You Can’t Tell a Buck by its Clover

Porson was encouraging. ‘Rhodes wasn’t built in a day,’ he said. ‘Give yourself time. Keep on at him and he’ll crack eventually. They always do. In his position he wants to talk, you have to remember that. Meanwhile, find that evidence. Confession is one thing, but you can’t make huts without straw.’

Straw huts? Slider thought. Or straw hats? Or was the old man thinking in a subliminal way of the three little pigs, one of whom built his house of straw instead of bricks? Boy, you wouldn’t want to get lost in Porson’s mind without a miner’s lamp and a ball of string!

‘So what have you got to go on?’ Porson asked in conclusion.

Slider pulled himself together. ‘We’ve brought his car in. It’s a Ford Focus – dark blue, so that’s all right – and we’re going to look for soil or grass from the murder site. There’s an outside chance we might get something from the tights or the necklace chain. And we’re looking for more witnesses. If we can find someone who saw his car’s reg number at or near Old Oak Common . . .’

‘Hmm,’ said Porson, evidently unimpressed. ‘Better get that confession. What about the other two? Can’t keep cluttering up the cells with old suspects. I take it you’ve gone right off them?’

‘I think we can rule out Oates, sir. He can’t drive and he has no access to a car. And his confession seems to be more to do with Wanda Lempowski than Zellah Wilding. The problem with him is his confession. If we let him go now he’s going to repeat it to the press ad nauseam —’

‘—and stir up a hermit’s nest, yes. Well, no need to show everyone our hand. You can hold him for another twelve hours, for his own good, but after that we’ll have to have a clear-out. What about Carmichael?’

‘I’m still not a hundred per cent happy about him. Haven’t managed to confirm his alibi so far, and it’s still possible he borrowed a car and that it was him at the Common with Zellah.’

Porson scowled. ‘I can’t keep giving bed and breakfast to everyone in West London. D’you think he’ll skip if you let him out?’

‘If he’s guilty, yes. I think he’d disappear and take a lot of finding. He’s streetwise and his business is highly mobile.’

‘And Wilding?’

‘If he’s guilty he’ll kill himself. And if he’s innocent he’ll kill Carmichael.’

Porson walked a few tempestuous steps up and down behind his desk. ‘Well, what do you want? Three suspects is two too many.’

‘Just a little more time, sir,’ Slider said, unhappily aware that this was not all he wanted. ‘I think it would help if we could establish who the father of the baby was. It would certainly give us more of an edge with Carmichael.’

Porson nodded, seeing the point. ‘All right. Fast-track the DNA test. I’ll authorise the expense. We’ll have to cut back somewhere, though. Can I send some of the uniform back?’

‘Yes, sir. I can manage with my own people.’

‘All right, get on with it, then. Time and tide gathers no moss.’

Slider trudged away.

On his way back to his office, Joanna’s words came back to him – that Oliver Paulson was the one character he hadn’t interviewed who knew everybody. Not that there was any reason to suspect Paulson had anything to do with it, but it was possible he might have some knowledge that would give Slider a fresh angle, or a new insight. He was desperate for either. Time was passing, and the old adage that you solved a murder in the first forty-eight hours, while less true than it used to be, still hung around in the back of a copper’s mind. And he felt no nearer to understanding Zellah. Someone must have known her. He didn’t suppose it was Oliver Paulson, but he might know someone who had.

A couple of telephone calls brought him a bit of luck. Paulson had been working from home that day (Slider had forgotten it was Friday); furthermore, he was actually there, not using the home- working day to get a start on a long weekend. Slider put a few things in train, and then took himself over to Lansdowne Crescent.

The semicircular street, together with its opposite half, Stanley Crescent, marked the position of the old horse-racing track, famous in the eighteenth century. The circular green which had been the centre of the racecourse had once been bisected by a lane which was hardly more than a dirt track. Now the dirt track had grown up to be Ladbroke Grove, a serious, tarmacked thoroughfare, and all that was left of the green was two little half moons of garden surrounded by railings, one for each of the crescents.

But these railinged gardens were a feature of nineteenth-century London which was highly prized in the twentieth, and added a significant number of thousands to the value of a property. Lansdowne Crescent was an 1850s terrace of typical Kensington houses in white stucco, with steps up to a pillared portico over a semi- basement. The Golden Rectangle architecture and big sash windows provided the grand and harmonious proportions that gave north-west London so much of its handsomeness, while inside the rooms were lofty, airy and ample.

The flat Oliver Paulson shared occupied the top three floors of the five-storey building, the ground floor and basement being a separate flat. Paulson and his friends therefore had the original drawing-room floor for their living rooms, and the original bedroom floors above, plus the servants’ rooms under the roof.

Most of the parking spaces were occupied, but Slider managed to find an empty Residents Only spot a few doors down, slipped in between a silver Mazda and a black Focus, and slapped his POLICE ON CALL notice on the dashboard in case of passing wardens. He found Paulson alone – the other flatmates still being at work. He was taking full advantage of the home-working day: he had evidently not shaved that morning, and was slobbing out in grey tracksuit bottoms with what looked like a coffee-stain on one knee, bare feet and an elderly T-shirt with the Hard Rock Cafe motif on the back.

He seemed a well-toned young man, arguing frequent trips to the gym, and his face and arms were expensively tanned. The family likeness to his sister was immediately obvious: he had the same undistinguished, slightly pudgy features, and a similar open-eyed, guileless look which hardly went with the traditional idea of a Master of the Universe, for all the evidence of high life around him.

But with friendly frankness, he immediately disabused Slider of the notion that he was one of those. ‘Oh, no, I’m just a back-room boy. A grubber. Analysis and research. I don’t do the risky, nuts-on-the-block stuff – though I do share in the bonuses, thank God!’ he added with a happy laugh. ‘Otherwise, how could I afford a place like this?’ He looked round at the wide, high-ceilinged, glamorous room as if he could hardly believe he was really here. ‘My dad thinks I’m such a fool, I must have got in by mistake. He keeps telling me to put away every penny I can, because they’re going to cotton on sooner or later that they hired the wrong bloke, and chuck me out!’

‘And do you?’ Slider asked, smiling. You could no more dislike this boy than slap a baby. He had to remind himself that in taking drugs, Paulson was a casual lawbreaker and therefore on the wrong side of the them-and-us divide.

‘What, save? Me? Are you kidding? Easy come, easy go, that’s me. I know it can’t last for ever. All the more reason to enjoy it while I can. Can I get you something? Coffee? Herbal tea?’

‘Nothing, thank you. I just wanted to talk to you about Zellah Wilding.’

The cheery face fell. ‘God, yes, that poor kid! What a rotten thing to happen. Do you know who did it yet?’

‘We’re working on that,’ Slider said. ‘Can we sit down?’

‘Of course. Sorry. Will over here do?’

There were two modern armchairs framing a low table in front of the French windows, beyond which was a narrow balcony with a wrought-iron railing, looking on to the crescent and its garden. They sat facing each other, sideways-on to the view. Paulson sat on the edge of the seat, leaning forward slightly, resting his forearms on his thighs, knees out, his hands dangling into the space between. They fidgeted with each other and with anything else