Body Line

‘Not necessarily, guv. But it might be the Hofland house is his town pad, and he’s got another house in the country. He might have a wife tucked away there for all we know.’

‘You’re getting into the realms of speculation now,’ Slider said. ‘The fancy stuff. The Christmas and Easter menus. Let’s stick to what we do know.’

‘Which isn’t much,’ said Atherton. ‘It starts with Amanda Sturgess, and stops there as well.’

‘She could be a tasty suspect,’ Mackay said. ‘Wronged wife, pissed off with his womanizing, set on revenge —’

‘After being divorced ten years? Have sense,’ Connolly objected from her desk. ‘She’s a life of her own now. Why would she want to kill him?’

‘Revenge, and money,’ Mackay said. ‘The two best motives.’

‘We don’t know there’s any money,’ Connolly said.

‘Well, anyway, using a contract killer is good for it being her. It’s cold, and it’s arm’s length.’

‘We don’t know it was a contract killer. What about Frith?’ Hollis put in. ‘She’s living with him. Maybe she used him.’

‘Aude said the killer was tall,’ said Atherton, ‘and Frith isn’t.’

‘What’s tall? And how could she tell, hanging off the balcony at floor level?’ Hollis said. ‘She said the killer had dark hair, and Frith has dark hair. And you said he had work boots on.’

‘Let’s not run away with ourselves,’ Slider said. ‘Amanda Sturgess came across to me as a determined and well-organized person who could carry through any project she put her mind to, but we haven’t the slightest reason to suppose she wanted Rogers dead, so let’s just clear as we go, shall we? Mackay, you can look into this agency of hers, see if it’s genuine. Connolly, I want you to look into Robin Frith.’

‘The dyslexic’s Colin Firth,’ Atherton said.

‘Is she getting the ride off him?’ Connolly asked.

‘He could be the lodger, her long-lost cousin or one of her ex-clients, for anything we know,’ Slider said. ‘That’s why you have to look into him. What else have we got?’

There was a bit of a deadly silence.

‘Then get on with this lot,’ Slider said, waving at the bags of Rogers’s effects, and took himself off to his office to make phone calls.

Dennis Markham, the ballistics man, rang. ‘I’m sending over the report to you,’ he told Slider, ‘but I thought I’d tell you what it says.’

‘I’m not going to like it, am I?’ Slider guessed from the sympathy in his tone.

‘Sorry, mate. Wish it was better news. We’ve got a match with a weapon used in a non-fatal shooting three years ago, a post-office robbery gone wrong in Lewisham. The gun – a .38 revolver – seems to have been let off by accident. The evidence of the postmaster was that three masked men came in brandishing the shooter and shouting for the money. He hit the alarm, the one with the gun let off a shot into the ceiling, and they panicked and ran for it. Didn’t get a penny. Local police had a fair idea who it was, but they couldn’t get the evidence against them, so nothing happened, except that the suspected lads made themselves scarce. So you see?’

‘Yes, I see,’ said Slider. ‘It sounds like a rental.’

‘Got it in one,’ said Markham.

‘Blast.’

‘Sorry about that. And given that it was used in a fatal this time, chances are it’ll have been melted down by now.’

It was an unhappy fact that there was no need for criminals to go to the trouble and danger of buying illegal firearms these days, when they could rent them by the day for an extremely reasonable fee. The dealers kept large stocks and rotated them, and if an individual weapon looked likely to be too notorious it was destroyed. There was nothing to link the firearm with its owner except the word of the criminal, and it would be a foolish criminal who dropped the dealer in it. Murder did not carry the death sentence any more, but grassing up a firearms supplier did.

‘I hope you weren’t depending on a lead from it,’ Markham went on.

‘I never expect anything but trouble and disappointment from shootings,’ Slider said. ‘Thank God they’re rare enough in this part of the world.’

‘One in the back of the head – sounds professional,’ Markham sympathized.

‘I don’t know what the world’s coming too,’ Slider complained. ‘What ever happened to the traditional bash on the coconut with the handy blunt instrument?’

‘Beats me,’ said Markham.

Atherton and Hollis had been going through the financial side together.

‘According to the bank statements,’ Atherton said, laying them in front of Slider on his desk, ‘he has a regular monthly income, paid direct into his account, from something called Windhover. Here, you see – and here. Fifteen thousand every month.’

‘Which sounds like a salary,’ Hollis said. He blew through his scrawny moustache in disgust. ‘Hundred and eighty kay a year? Nice work if you can get it.’

‘But it’s not a huge amount for a top consultant,’ Atherton objected. ‘A GP can make that much. It’s not nearly enough for our fancy-dan Dirty Doctor.’

‘Maybe it’s not his only income,’ said Slider.

‘There’s nothing else incoming in the statements,’ said Atherton.

‘O’ course,’ said Hollis, ‘we don’t know that this is his only bank account. If he did have another house somewhere—’

‘You haven’t found any documents to suggest he had?’

‘Well, not so far. But like I said, there just doesn’t seem enough stuff here, to me. And we haven’t found anything like a contract of employment, or any correspondence with this Windhover.’

‘What is it, anyway?’ Slider asked.

‘Don’t know yet, guv,’ said Hollis. ‘The bank’s being a bit sticky. You know what they’re like.’

‘We might need Mr Porson to lean on them,’ Atherton said.

Slider was running a finger down the statements. ‘Regular outgoings,’ he commented. ‘This one, three thousand and change, must be the mortgage.’ He calculated in his head. ‘That’s not enough, though.’

‘Could have put in cash.’

‘It would have had to be a lot of cash,’ Slider said. ‘Utilities bills, council tax. What’s this one, five thousand exactly?’

‘Automatic transfer into a savings account with the same bank,’ Atherton said. ‘We’ve found a statement for that. There’s about four hundred thousand in it. That’s about six years’ worth, plus interest.’

‘Credit cards, two,’ Slider noted.

‘Paid off in full every month by direct debit. And here’s the thing – there’s not a whole hell of a lot on them. Clothes, petrol, drinks and meals, but in moderate amounts. It’s not exactly the lifestyle of the rich and shameless.’

‘Adding it all together –’ Hollis took over – ‘it leaves him with a small surplus each month – which fluctuates only by a little – and a growing savings account which he doesn’t seem to draw on. Which doesn’t make sense to me. It’s all too tidy.’

‘There must be some more money somewhere,’ Atherton said. ‘I’m starting to think Colin must be right –’ with a glance at Hollis – ‘and there is another house somewhere.’

‘Don’t get carried away,’ Slider admonished. ‘You only think there’s some more paperwork somewhere. He could have had a safety deposit box.’

‘Not at this bank. We asked.’

‘Or something hidden in the house. Have all the papers come over now?’

‘Yes, guv,’ Hollis said. ‘Bob Bailey says he should have finished this afternoon, but he’s emptied all the drawers and cupboards.’

‘Hmm. Well, you’d better find out who this Windhover is and what they were paying him for. And while the four hundred thousand might not be a Blair-type fortune, it’d be nice to know who comes in for it. You haven’t found a will?’