Fell Purpose

me. I didn’t dump her.’

‘But you would have.’

‘I don’t know. Probably, in the end. I mean, it wasn’t a lifetime commitment. It wasn’t like we were going to get married or anything.’

‘What did you think when she broke up with you? That she’d met someone else?’

‘That’s what Olly said. But I didn’t see her after that, not until that Sunday, so I didn’t know.’

‘We’ve got the records from her mobile phone, and she rang you up at the beginning of June – one phone call, after quite a gap. What was that about?’

He looked surprised and then puzzled, and then his brow cleared. ‘Oh yeah. I remember. She just rang me out of the blue. That was weird. I’d not seen her for a couple of weeks, then suddenly she rings and she’s, like, just sort of chatting. And I said d’you want to meet up, and she says no, that’s all over. She says she can’t see me any more. Well, I thought it was a bit cool, but I didn’t care, really. You know, I’d sort of moved on. So I said, whatever you like, babe. And then she says, “I’m happy now. I just wanted to be sure you were.”’

‘Those were her words?’

‘Fact,’ he said. ‘“I’m happy, I just wanted to be sure you were.”’

‘What did you think she meant?’

‘I don’t know. I tell you, she was one messed-up kid.’ He looked thoughtful. ‘I’d forgotten about that until you mentioned it.’

‘Did she sound happy?’

‘Yeah, now I think about it, she did.’ He frowned. ‘But that Sunday, she was different. I couldn’t make out what was going on with her, but I tell you one thing: she wasn’t happy. You know, I was angry yesterday that she got me into this. But now I just feel sorry for her. Poor little cow.’

Slider felt again that unwanted sympathy. Carmichael wasn’t the unmitigated villain he ought to have been in the circumstances.

‘There’s one other thing I wanted to ask you. While Zellah was at your flat, did she make a phone call?’

He thought for a moment and then said, ‘Yeah, she did.’

‘When, exactly?’

He frowned with effort. ‘We’d been talking. Then we cuddled a bit. Then when I tried to kiss her she pulled away. Then she went to the bathroom, and when she come out she said she had to phone someone. I said she knew where the phone was, and she went.’

‘Did you hear any of the conversation?’

‘No. The phone’s in the kitchen.’

‘You didn’t ask her anything about it?’

‘No. She used to have to check in with her dad now and then. I assumed that was what she was doing.’

‘So you don’t actually know it was her father she phoned?’

‘Why? Does it matter?’

‘Was it before or after the phone call that she said she wanted to go to the fair?’

He stared. ‘After. It was after. You mean . . .?’ He was thinking hard. ‘She phoned him – the other bloke – and that was when she made the date with him?’

‘I don’t know,’ Slider said. ‘It’s possible. When I get your phone records, we’ll see what number she dialled.’

His anger was returning, darkening his face. ‘She did that? Rang him up from my flat, while she was with me? The sly little bitch! She really played me for a fool!’

‘Oh,’ said Slider sadly, ‘I don’t think that’s what she was doing.’

NINETEEN

100-What Brain

The Mossmans lived in Doyle Gardens, between Harlesden and Kensal Rise, areas which were in any case so close together it was impossible to say where one began and the other ended. It was a large semi-detached house in what had once been quite a posh street, but was now creeping arthritically downhill; but the house had a large garden which backed on to the sports ground, which perhaps accounted for the family’s staying put. There was an elderly but well-kept Mercedes saloon on the hardstanding, and a space where the ghostly outline on the paving said another car was customarily parked. Slider, detective faculties working at full tilt, deduced that Mrs Mossman was home but Mr Mossman was still at his place of business.

So it proved. She was a comfortable rather than glamorous woman, upholstered of figure and sensibly dressed, and the house smelled of soup and furniture polish. The motherly and wifely arts were evidently her forte. A dog came bouncing to meet Slider – mongrel, but with a large injection of black lab – and halfway down the passage a cat appeared and wound sinuously round his legs before galloping for the kitchen.

It was to the kitchen that Mrs Mossman led him, excusing herself that she was in the middle of something.

‘That’s all right,’ Slider said. ‘I like kitchens.’

This one looked over the garden, was not newly refurbished, and was full of the clutter of living. On the stove, stock bubbled in a pot. Pastry was lying out on a marble slab waiting to be rolled, and there were cubes of meat and onion seething gently in a frying pan.

‘Steak and kidney pie?’ he suggested.

She gave him a small, brief smile. ‘Steak and onion pie. Cyril doesn’t care for kidneys. I suppose it’s Frieda you want to speak to? It is about this awful business, isn’t it – poor Zellah Wilding?’

‘Yes, I’m afraid so.’

‘It’s so terrible.’ Behind her glasses, her brown eyes were large and moist, as if ready to overflow. ‘I keep thinking how it could have been Frieda – not that we’d have let her roam about the Scrubs alone like that. I can’t think what the Wildings were up to. They were always so strict with Zellah. I don’t understand how they suddenly let her go wandering about in the middle of the night in a place like that. But then you can be killed right outside your own front door these days, in broad daylight, can’t you? Oh, it’s a terrible world! But I try not to frighten Frieda too much. Cyril and I want her to be strong and independent. It’s such a problem, balancing that against keeping her safe. I hate even letting her go to school on her own, but you have to untie the apron strings, don’t you? I don’t want her to be one of those girls who can’t do anything for herself, or find her way anywhere. There are plenty of those at school, I can tell you – get driven to school in the morning and collected at night, and taken everywhere in a car. Their parents are nothing but unpaid chauffeurs, and it’s not good for the girls to be so dependent. When we were seventeen we went everywhere on our own. But then something like this happens, and it makes you pause. You just don’t know what to think, what to do for the best.’

Slider said, ‘I know exactly what you mean. I have a daughter myself.’ He was surprised at himself for offering the fact, but he felt her dilemma acutely. ‘If it helps, I don’t think it was a random killing.’

‘Oh?’ She was surprised, and didn’t know quite how to take it. ‘I thought I read that you’d arrested some awful serial killer.’

‘We have to follow lines of enquiry as they arise. They don’t all lead to the right conclusion. In fact, I believe now that the killer knew Zellah.’

‘They do say,’ she said introspectively, ‘that it’s more often someone the victim knows.’

‘That’s true,’ Slider said.

‘I don’t know that it makes me feel any safer,’ she concluded.

‘I sometimes wonder,’ Slider said, ‘whether feeling safe isn’t a modern luxury we’ve got used to comparatively recently. Historically, life was always dangerous and uncertain.’

‘I suppose you’re right,’ she said with the brief, tight smile again. ‘But the fact is we have got used to it. Well, I mustn’t keep you. You’ll want to talk to Frieda. She’s upstairs studying. I’ll just turn the gas down and go and fetch her. You can talk to her in the lounge – I expect you’d sooner be alone with her?’

Slider was impressed by her understanding and generosity. ‘If you don’t mind.’

‘No, I know there are things girls won’t say in front of their parents. You’ll try not to frighten her, though,