‘I know, laddie. You always do,’ said Porson.
‘How are you going to get him in?’ Atherton asked.
‘Stop breathing down my neck. I have a plan.’
‘A man with a plan: Panama.’
‘Right. And if it doesn’t work, I’ll eat my hat.’
‘It was a
‘Stop burbling, it’s ringing. Hello? Mr Markov? It’s Detective Inspector Slider here. Shepherd’s Bush police station. You remember I called on you – yes, that’s right. Oh, coming along slowly. These things take time. Mr Markov, there are just a couple more questions I’d like to ask you. It’s just a small thing, but it’s as well to get these things cleared up. Well, I wondered if you could pop into the station here this morning? If you wouldn’t mind. Yes, I could come out to you, but,’ he lowered his voice, ‘I assume your wife is there, and I would hate to disturb her. There are some aspects of the case I’m sure you’d prefer not to expose her to. Quite. There’s no need for her to be involved in any unpleasantness. Everything said here will be confidential. Indeed. Yes. Thank you so much. I’ll expect you shortly, then.’
He put down the phone and smiled like a cat. ‘He thinks I’ve cottoned on that he and Zellah were making the beast with two backs. He’ll come in to explain it away somehow.’
‘Devious and unscrupulous,’ Atherton said. ‘I like it!’
Markov looked as though he hadn’t slept much for days. He had shaved for the occasion and put on clean clothes, but his skin was slack with too much alcohol, and there were bags under his eyes. The eyes themselves were bloodshot, and his nose was red around the nostrils and kept running. ‘I think I’m getting a cold,’ he said, to excuse the constant need to sniff and wipe. ‘These summer colds are the devil – worse than the winter sort, I always think.’
‘Yes, very nasty,’ Slider said in a friendly way. ‘And so unfair, somehow. One feels far more put upon.’ He gestured Markov into a seat in the interview room, and went round to the other side of the table. ‘Can I offer you tea, or coffee?’
‘No, thank you. I wouldn’t mind some water, though.’
Slider had him brought a small bottle of mineral water and a plastic cup, and sat with hands relaxed on the table in front of him while Markov unscrewed the cap, poured some water and drank it. The action and Slider’s demeanour were working on him. The wariness with which he had entered had evaporated. He obviously thought that he was going to be able to talk his way out of whatever was coming.
‘Well, now,’ Slider said, with a comfortable smile, ‘I expect you’re wondering what all this is about. It’s quite a small thing, but I do need to have it cleared up. It’s about your wife’s car.’
‘Oh yes?’ Markov said. He frowned, as if he were trying to remember what, if anything, he had ever said about the car.
‘You did say that she cycled to work?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Then I wonder why you didn’t report it missing on Sunday night.’
‘Missing?’
‘If you knew she hadn’t taken it, it must have been stolen, mustn’t it?’
‘It wasn’t stolen,’ he said, looking puzzled. ‘It was there this morning.’ A blush spread through his waxy face as he remembered he had previously repudiated all knowledge of a car. ‘Oh! I mean – when I said before . . . it was . . . I didn’t . . .’
‘You said you didn’t own a car. Quite.’
‘It was the truth,’ he protested.
‘Yes, I know – your wife owns it. What I want to know is, what was it doing under the railway bridge at Old Oak Common on Sunday night?’ Markov looked absolutely stumped, his face rigid, his eyes stationary. ‘We know your wife was at work on Sunday night. You can’t work in an intensive-care unit without having plenty of witnesses to the fact. You, on the other hand, were at home, with no one to vouch for you.’
‘I was at home all evening,’ he blurted. ‘I was working on a painting. I can’t help it if there was no one else there.’ He thought so hard you could hear the creak. ‘Maybe a joyrider took it, and then brought it back.’
‘Did you drive here today?’ Slider asked. Markov’s eyes flitted about, looking for escape. ‘We know that you are insured to drive it. Did you drive it here today? Is it downstairs?’
‘Well . . . yes,’ Markov admitted, like someone swallowing a too-large lump of steak.
‘Then we’d like to have a look at it, if you don’t mind. Do some tests.’
‘What sort of tests?’ he asked faintly.
‘Forensic tests. Whoever took the car will have left traces of themselves – hair, skin cells, sweat and sebaceous oil on the steering wheel and so on. You can’t get into a car without leaving DNA behind. Everyone who was ever in it will be there.’
‘You’ll find my DNA in there,’ Markov said in a dry voice. ‘And Steph’s.’
‘Of course we’ll have to eliminate those. We could start with yours – if you’d be so kind as to let us take a buccal swab.’ He brought out the kit. Markov was sweating now, but he still couldn’t see where this was going. ‘You’d have no objection to that, would you?’
‘Well, I—’
‘Thank you. This won’t take a moment.’ It was done in seconds. ‘Thank you,’ Slider said. ‘And if we could have the car keys . . .?’
Markov handed them over. Atherton handed them and the swab to the constable outside the door and returned to his seat. Markov’s eyes flitted between them anxiously.
‘Of course,’ Slider said amiably, ‘the other traces we’ll find in the car will be Zellah’s, but we already have her DNA typed, so we’ll recognise those.’
‘Zellah? She . . .’ He stopped.
‘You won’t try to pretend she was never in your car, I hope,’ Slider said lightly. ‘You
Markov went so white Slider thought for an electric moment that he might throw up. ‘You said – my wife – you implied she needn’t know. That’s why I came here. You won’t tell her?’
‘I won’t tell her you were having an affair,’ Slider said, ‘but I think she’s going to find out anyway. Your DNA will match the baby’s, and when that’s added to all the other evidence we have against you, we will be charging you with Zellah’s murder. I think your wife is bound to hear about that sooner or later, don’t you?’
Markov’s mouth opened and shut a few times, but he didn’t seem to be able to get any words out. At last he said, ‘I didn’t. I didn’t. I didn’t. You’ve got it wrong. It wasn’t me.’
‘Let me see your hands,’ Slider said.
Markov’s hands were on the table, balled into fists. He looked at them as if he didn’t know what they were, and lay them flat, palm down. Slider reached across the table, took hold of a forefinger of each, and turned them over, palm up. Across the palm of the right hand was a thin, faint red mark, the healing scar of a long but minor cut. ‘How did you do that?’ he asked.
‘I – I cut myself by accident. With a palette knife. Grabbed the wrong end. I’d had a glass of wine or two,’ he added with an attempt at a light laugh.
Inventive, Slider thought. Even at this stage. He shook his head and said, ‘You cut it on the chain around Zellah’s neck. We have a DNA sample from that, too, and it will match yours, just as the foetal tissue will. I think, Mr Markov, the time has come for you to tell me everything. We know you killed her, you see. We have all the evidence we need to charge you. There is just this one window of opportunity for you to tell your side of the story, mention any mitigating circumstances we might not know about. Now’s the time to talk. Otherwise, it’s premeditated murder of the worst kind, and nothing will save you from the full penalty of the law.’
To his surprise, Markov began to weep. ‘I didn’t mean to! It was a mistake! An accident! I never meant to hurt her! You don’t understand. It wasn’t my fault.’
They were tears, Slider decided, of self-pity. Under-standable, but not very noble. He thought of Zellah, and wished her nemesis had been a bit more of a man, even though that would have made his job harder.
