Body Line

plastic surgeon. But we’ve got him down as urology.’

‘That’s what Amanda Sturgess told us,’ said Slider. What with that, the unadmitted telephone calls, and Frith’s lie about his whereabouts on Monday, the Sturgess equipe was definitely due for another visit, Slider thought.

The Sturgess and Beale agency was an office above a travel shop on the Chiswick High Road, more or less opposite the common – a good, central position that would probably command a steepish rent. ‘Although possibly the landlord may give it a favourable rate because it’s a charity,’ Slider said, as Atherton scanned the roadside for somewhere to park.

‘Bless your Pollyanna heart,’ Atherton said. ‘Landlords don’t think like that. They’d have to hand back the badge if they did something kind.’ He saw a space and drew up parallel to the car in front of it. ‘But there’s no reason the agency shouldn’t have wealthy donors. Oh, get off my tail, you halfwit!’ he bellowed into the rear view mirror. ‘Can’t you see I’m parking?’ He jerked a hand out of the window and furiously beckoned past the car that was jammed up behind him. It was a souped-up black Mazda 3 Sport with a driver who looked about fifteen and had his windows wound down so that the whole world could share his CD choice. ‘Get you next time,’ Atherton said. ‘And if I listened to music like that, I wouldn’t want anyone else to know about it.’

They walked back to the travel shop. The door for the upstairs lay between it and the next shop: a genuine old Victorian door that matched the age of the building, handsomely painted in fresh red gloss, with a big brass dead-knob in the centre. There was a brass nameplate on the return of the wall: Sturgess and Beale Agency, Employment Solutions for the Differently Abled.

‘Classy,’ said Atherton.

Below that was another plate saying: Disabled access and lift to the rear, or please ring for assistance. Below again was the bell, a large brass mounting around a white porcelain button with PRESS enamelled in the centre in black. ‘All right for the press; where do the rest of us ring?’ Atherton complained.

‘I think we’ll just go up,’ Slider said. The door was on the latch and pushed open. Inside was a narrow hallway with green marble-effect lino tiles and a steep staircase going up; the passage went past them right through to a glazed back door and the lift. The walls were painted cream and pale green and there were sunken halogen lights in the ceiling. All very fresh and attractive. They climbed to the first floor, where the lift came out on the landing, and walls had been moved to make manoeuvring room for a wheelchair. The doorways were extra wide, and there were polished wooden handrails everywhere. ‘I bet the lino tiles are non-slip, too,’ Atherton said. ‘They’ve thought of everything.’

‘I should hope so,’ said Slider.

Through the first open door, they passed into an office, light and airy, well lit, with plenty of floor space. There were three desks, one bearing a printer and copier and stacks of forms and leaflets. The other two had computers and telephones and the usual office accoutrements. Behind one sat a slight young woman, very fair and pale, who appeared to be suffering from a heavy cold – her eyes and the end of her nose were red and swollen – clattering away full-speed on the keyboard. At the other was a woman in her fifties, rather shapeless-looking, with a mass of greying frizzy hair spreading out and past her shoulders, oversized tortoiseshell glasses slipping to the end of her nose, and an expression of tense concentration on her face as she picked two-fingered at the keys. Through a further wide and open door was a glimpse of a second office, the one which had the windows on to the street. The desk was out of sight to the left, but a youngish man in a wheelchair could be seen, his attention on the occupant of the desk. Slider could distinguish the cut-glass tones of Amanda Sturgess coming from within.

‘Can I help you?’ said the shapeless woman.

‘Detective Inspector Slider and Detective Sergeant Atherton,’ Slider said. ‘To see Amanda Sturgess.’

‘Oh,’ said the woman, looking alarmed. She stood up jerkily, knocking over a pot of pencils and biros on the desk. ‘I’m afraid she’s not available.’ A pencil rolled off the table and she stooped awkwardly to retrieve it. She was about five foot four and extremely fat, and was wearing a waistless print dress which reached her ankles, like a floral tent. She pushed her large glasses up her nose and they slid straight back down, as arrogantly as the Queen Mary down the slipway. ‘Can I help at all? I’m Nora Beale. Ms Sturgess’s partner.’ She came round the end of the desk and took a step towards them, and dithered, as if wondering whether to offer to shake hands or not. The outer edge of her hip knocked a small pile of papers to the ground. ‘Oh!’ she said again, and made to retrieve them, but Atherton got in first, stooping like a hawk, gathering them in one pass of his long fingers and presenting them to her. She almost snatched them from him, looking at him in confused annoyance. ‘They’re confidential,’ she objected, and pushed her glasses up again. ‘Were you enquiring about employing a differently abled person? I have a leaflet covering the legal requirements, if you aren’t sure about them.’

Unseen within the inner room, a hand closed the door.

Slider raised his hand slightly, to prevent the woman attempting to get across the room to the leaflet table, which he thought in her state of nervousness would leave a trail of havoc. The young woman had ceased typing and was watching the scene. ‘No, thank you. I need to speak to Mrs Sturgess about a personal matter.’

‘It’s Ms Sturgess,’ Beale corrected, with more force than anything she had said so far. ‘And I’m afraid it’s quite impossible to speak to her. She has someone with her. One of our clients.’

‘Yes, so I saw,’ Slider said. ‘I’m afraid it is rather urgent, however. Would you please tell her we are here?’

‘I can’t disturb her when she’s with a client,’ she objected, outraged. ‘Our clients are very vulnerable, and must be given every consideration. You’ll have to come back some other time. It’s best to make an appointment, you know. Ms Sturgess is always very busy.’ Her face was mottling, though whether with fear or anger, Slider couldn’t tell. Her devotion to Amanda Sturgess was obvious, but from the little he had seen, it was not so obvious why Amanda would keep her about the place.

‘I quite understand,’ he said soothingly, ‘but I must ask you to interrupt her and tell her we are here. We’ll wait while she winds up the interview.’

Ms Beale made various disapproving, tutting noises, but she blundered back round her desk and rang through to the other office, turning away and covering her mouth while she muttered her message. When she had put the phone down again she went back to her hunt-and-peck typing without a word to the two intruders, though judging from the amount of backspacing she was doing, she was too upset to be making a good job of it. It was the younger woman who said, ‘Would you like to sit down?’ and gestured towards some chairs on her side of the room. Slider smiled at her and politely declined. He was not going to be passively seated and let them think the waiting was all right.

It was eight minutes before the inner door opened and the man in the wheelchair appeared, with Amanda Sturgess behind him. She ignored the visitors with glacial completeness as she escorted him out, talking to him the while, all the way to the lift. Only on her return did she give Slider a cold glance and say, ‘You may come in,’ and then stalked past them into her sanctum.

They followed her in and closed the door, and she faced them, standing, across her desk and got the first punch in. ‘If you wish to speak to me in future you must make an appointment. I do not appreciate your turning up here unannounced, embarrassing me, annoying my staff and upsetting the clients. You must understand that our clients are extremely vulnerable people, and I cannot have disturbing influences putting them at risk.’

Slider took it straight back to her. ‘And you must understand that I do not appreciate being lied to. It makes me feel very disturbed, and when I get disturbed I tend to come and disturb others.’

She was shocked by his use of her own words. Her eyes widened and she reddened angrily. ‘How dare you be facetious?’ she cried. ‘Don’t you grasp the importance of our work here? We are a charity! We deal with disabled people!’

‘It’s not your business I’m interested in, it’s you personally. And you need to grasp that I am investigating a murder, and that hindering an investigation is an imprisonable offence.’

Atherton thought his boss was going in a bit hard, but it seemed he had the measure of her. She shut her mouth with a snap and sat down abruptly, and when she spoke again a moment later her tone was different, quieter.

‘But I’m not. I wouldn’t. Obviously I want to help you if I can, in any way possible, but I don’t see what I can do. I don’t know anything about it. You can’t really suppose that I do.’ She looked at him with furious appeal.