Fell Purpose

‘I got talking to another nurse in the same unit, and they are married, but she uses her maiden name. I suppose that’s because of her career – she’s manager of the intensive-care unit, so she’s a bit of a player. Also, I asked did Stephanie drive the car to work. Apparently she drives in when the weather’s bad, otherwise she cycles.’

‘The weather was fine on Sunday,’ Atherton said.

‘And I did a bit of checking with the management about her shifts. The parking tickets are all at times Stephanie was working. So someone else was driving the car at those times.’

‘You said the car under the railway bridge was a Toyota Corolla,’ Atherton said to Slider. ‘But I’m not sure where you’re going with this, or what made you connect the two. There must be hundreds of Corollas in the area.’

‘Just as there are Focuses,’ Slider replied, ‘but you were happy for it to be Wilding’s.’

‘Well, obviously, because it belongs to someone connected with the victim,’ he said, and stopped abruptly.

‘Sir,’ Connolly said, frowning as she tried to catch up, ‘I thought Markov said Zellah was a lezzer. It said in your notes—’

‘Classic misdirection,’ Slider said.

‘Hey, I said that,’ Atherton protested.

‘About a completely different subject. Markov threw out the suggestion about Zellah in the hope that I wouldn’t make a connection between him, Zellah and sex. He didn’t say she was a lesbian. He said he wondered if she had doubts about her sexuality, as many young girls do. He also told me that he didn’t own a car. And then he said it was hardly worth it in London. And he said his wife cycled to work. Every one of those statements is true. But he didn’t say he never drove a car, though that was the impression he hoped to leave.’

‘Misdirection,’ Connolly said. ‘I see. So you think . . .?’

Slider turned to Atherton. ‘Emily said Carmichael’s account of the last meeting with Zellah was so dumb it could almost be true.’

‘The thing about having two dates?’ he remembered.

‘It was school holidays. She couldn’t use the after-school activity excuse. The sleepover with Sophy and Chloe was her one chance to get in touch with the father of the baby,’ Slider went on. ‘She must have been desperate and terrified by then. Imagine if you were her, having to tell that father you were pregnant.’

‘Yes,’ Atherton said. ‘That would frighten a triple DSO.’

‘She couldn’t ring Markov from home. I don’t know if she tried to ring him from Sophy’s house. Maybe she did, and he wasn’t in, or his wife answered. I suspect she felt she had to see him face to face to tell him – it’s not something you can do over the phone.’

‘So where did Carmichael come into it?’ Atherton asked. ‘Was she really just using him for transport?’

‘I think she thought of him as a friend – someone she could talk to. She must have felt lonely, isolated with her problem.’

‘You got that right,’ Connolly said. ‘Couldn’t talk to her parents. And nobody would confide something like that to Sophy Cooper-Hutchinson.’

‘And I’ve learned enough about Frieda Mossman today to know she wouldn’t have confided in her, either,’ Slider said. ‘Not about that. At least Mike wouldn’t be shocked or disapproving. Probably she hoped to be able to talk to him. But he quickly showed he was just interested in sex,’ he said sadly. ‘So all that was left was to get in touch with Markov. Now, the scenario I’m working on is that she phoned Markov from Mike’s flat – he says she made a phone call. She told him she must see him. They agreed a time and a place – the fairground, ten o’clock. She had time to kill, so she got Mike to take her to the fair, and tried to have a good time.’

‘The condemned man eating a hearty meal?’ Atherton said.

‘Something like that.’ He thought of her going on the rides and screaming, hugging Mike’s arm to her, being a normal girlfriend for the last time in her life. He couldn’t blame her for using Carmichael. Hadn’t he used her? ‘But then she told Mike she was meeting someone else, and naturally enough he didn’t like that and they quarrelled.’

‘But,’ said Atherton, ‘the fat lady said the quarrel was later, near midnight.’

‘I’ve looked at the write-ups. She said there was a quarrel. The rifle-range man’s description matches Carmichael all right, but the fat lady said a tall man – Carmichael is not notably tall – older than Zellah – Carmichael doesn’t look particularly older than her – and she said he had brown hair, where Carmichael is notably dark. When Emily said that thing about the dumb excuse being true, I started to wonder if Zellah didn’t meet two men after all, and have two quarrels: one at ten, and a second, serious one at twelve.’

‘Yes,’ said Atherton, staring at nothing, ‘it works. She fights with Markov. She runs off across the Scrubs weeping, thinking her world is at an end. But after a while and some walking, she wonders if there isn’t still hope. She sees the Snogging Couple and asks to use their phone, rings Markov again, he comes to meet her.’

‘Meet, you see, not fetch,’ said Slider.

‘They have another row, she jumps out of the car, he chases her and kills her.’

They were silent.

‘But, sir,’ said Connolly, ‘if she told him she was up the pole the first time they met, why would he come to see her a second time? Why did they quarrel again? And why did that quarrel lead him to kill her?’

‘And why,’ Atherton said, ‘did he take a pair of tights with him when he went to meet her the second time?’

‘That,’ said Slider, ‘is something I think we’ll have to ask him.’

‘But first we need the phone records,’ Atherton said. ‘If it wasn’t Markov she phoned, the whole theory is a crock.’

‘We can’t expect to get them tonight. I think we should all go home and get a good night’s sleep.’

Atherton cocked his head. ‘Dollars to doughnuts you won’t sleep tonight.’

‘That’s entirely my problem,’ Slider said with dignity.

Joanna, holding Slider in bed, could feel both his weariness and his tension. The intense sympathy he always felt with a murder victim, even when it was a low-life scumbag, was partly what made him a good detective, but it also wore him out. He would find it hard to get to sleep tonight. He was keeping quite still, so as not to disturb her, but it was not a restful stillness. She sought for something to take his mind off the case.

‘Your father rang again this evening,’ she said, quietly, so as not to wake the baby.

‘Hmm?’

‘He sounded wistful.’

Slider sighed. ‘I’ll ring him tomorrow. I’ll make time. I’ve got him on my conscience.’

‘You haven’t got room on your conscience for anything else. I looked at more flats today.’

‘Oh?’

‘Nothing we could afford. You wouldn’t believe what a broom-cupboard costs these days. The only thing in our range was a lock-up garage. But it had no plumbing.’

‘What about . . .?’

‘I looked at rentals, too,’ she anticipated. ‘The rents are as much as a mortgage would be. The only reason I can afford this place is that I’ve been here so long the rent’s protected.’

‘I’ve let you down.’

‘Don’t start that. I’m not your dependant. But I just can’t think of a way out. We can’t increase our incomes, and we’ve nothing to sell. Unless . . .’

‘Unless what?’

‘Well, I did think perhaps we could sell George and lease him back. You get a big tax advantage with lease- back.’

‘I’m glad you’ve still got your sensa yumour,’ he said. ‘You’ll need it, living with me. We can’t even get a council flat, since I was foolish enough to marry you. They only give them to unmarried mothers.’

‘I was just wondering about your dad, though. If he’s selling his place, perhaps we could pool our resources and live together.’