Body Line

go more or less right past.’

‘You’re going back to Jiffies?’

‘I have to. I need the money. And some of the customers have been asking for me. As an entertainer, I have a responsibility to my audience.’

Gak, thought Connolly. But she said, ‘You be careful. And about this mobile – are you sure it’s David’s? Because I told you we found that in his pocket.’

‘Well, he must have had two,’ Aude said certainly, ‘because there it was on his bedside table and it’s not mine.’

‘Right, so, we’d better have it.’

‘And I won’t get into trouble for not bringing it before? Only, I’d forgotten all about it.’

‘Very natural, in the circumstances. No, you won’t get into trouble.’

‘If she’s not worried, it’s not our business to worry for her,’ Slider said.

‘No, sir, but she’s a bit of a gom, for all her thinking she’s so sophisticated. I just feel nervous for her.’

‘We can’t force her to stay in Guildford,’ he pointed out. ‘And I don’t really think there’s any danger. We made it clear she couldn’t identify the killer. What about this mobile?’

‘Like she says, your man must’ve had two.’ She handed it over. ‘It wasn’t switched off so the battery’s run down. Have to charge it up before it’ll work.’

‘There’s a selection of chargers in the CID room. Put it straight on, then we can have a look at last number redial.’

‘Yes, sir. But it occurs to me that no one could’ve rung it this week gone, or she’d surely have heard it ringing.’

‘His death was announced in the papers,’ Slider pointed out.

‘But his name wasn’t given until Tuesday,’ Connolly countered. ‘If anyone’d rung it Monday, there it was on a chair in the hospital room. And even after Tuesday, not everyone’d’ve known right off he was dead. Some people don’t read the papers, and it’d take time for word to get about.’

‘What’s your point?’

‘I’m not sure I have one,’ Connolly said with a disarming smile. ‘It just struck me as weird.’

‘I’ll take it under advisement,’ Slider said gravely.

Many had been the brainstorming session, generally at Atherton’s place, with him popping in and out of the kitchen, doing magic with a few ingredients, the Van Gogh of the limited palette, while Slider, and later Joanna, and later still Emily as well, sat by the fire inhaling large G&Ts for the better stimulation of thought. It wasn’t the same at Slider’s new house – couldn’t be. The kitchen was too far from the sitting-room, for one thing. And there were no cats. Slider made the G&Ts just as large in the hope of getting back some of the old atmosphere. But with Atherton corralled in the kitchen, with Dad as skivvy (Slider had held his breath – Atherton had split up with his previous girlfriend Sue partly over culinary differences – but Dad was the soul of tact and an intuitive helper) the conversation had to be social rather than work-related until the starter had been eaten (potted shrimps with ciabatta toast) and they were all settled round the ten-pound table with the main course. It was a tomato, mushroom and goat’s cheese tart with baby new potatoes and broccoli.

Dad was very impressed with it. ‘It didn’t take him any time at all to make it,’ he marvelled. ‘I could do that myself for you and Joanna if you needed a quick supper. Put it together in five minutes—’

‘I cheated,’ Atherton said. ‘Used bought pastry.’

‘How do you live with yourself?’ said Slider.

‘—and fifteen minutes in the oven,’ Dad went on. ‘All done while the potatoes are cooking.’

‘Peruvian,’ Atherton disparaged them. ‘No taste, but they’re quick. Can’t wait for the Jersey Royals to come in!’

‘Ah, now you’re talking,’ Dad said with approval. ‘Can’t beat the taste of a Jersey Royal – and a lovely bit of English asparagus with it. Bit of melted butter for both, and you’ve got a supper fit for a king.’

‘How long has this been going on?’ Emily stage-whispered at Joanna, with an amazed look.

‘What, Fanny and Johnny here? I don’t know.’

‘I feel completely de trop.’

‘Whatever you do, don’t say the pastry’s good.’

‘Seems all right to me.’

‘What did I just tell you?’ She bared her teeth in a rictus smile at Atherton. ‘Terrible pastry, this ready-made stuff,’ she said loudly. ‘Wish you’d had time to make your own.’

‘You two are mad,’ Atherton said elegantly. ‘I’ll talk to Bill. What about this mobile phone business?’

‘It’s a bit rum,’ Slider said. ‘Number redial lists the last five numbers dialled, and they’re all the same. And there’s only one number in the memory.’

‘The same one,’ Joanna hazarded.

‘And 1471 gives the same number again.’

‘So the conclusion is that, as he had another mobile as well, this one was a special one for contact with one person only,’ Emily said. Slider nodded. ‘Which sounds a bit criminal.’

‘Like on The Wire,’ Joanna said. ‘The drug dealers. But if he only rang one number on it, why did he put it in the memory?’

‘Because he was a dipstick,’ Atherton said.

‘I imagine he put it in at the beginning before he memorized it and forgot to take it out,’ Slider said. ‘It doesn’t matter, anyway, because the target phone has been switched off – probably thrown away or destroyed by now – so we can’t use it to trace whoever he was phoning. But it does make it look as though his new job was something on the shady side.’

‘Can’t you trace them from the number?’ Joanna asked.

‘It’s a pay-as-you-go. Bought from a shop in the St George’s mall in Harrow. Purchaser paid cash and gave a false name and address. We could take our photo, such as it is, of the suspect round there and see if anyone by some miracle remembers him, but it wouldn’t help because they wouldn’t know who he was or where he lived. So the phone is a dead end. All it does is confirm Aude’s story that Rogers made a call from his dressing-room that morning, which we thought before was impossible because there wasn’t one logged on his other mobile. But beyond that . . .’ He shook his head. ‘It did occur to me to wonder, however, whether that was what the killer was searching for,’ he added. ‘He looked in drawers, but didn’t turf out the contents; and he didn’t search downstairs. Which suggests he was looking for something specific and had an idea where it might be. People don’t bury their mobiles deep under things in drawers. And he’d spoken on it already that morning, before the killer came round.’

‘It was probably the killer he spoke to,’ Atherton said. ‘Or the killer’s boss, if he was a hired hand.’

‘If you can’t trace the phone back, why would he worry about it?’ Emily asked. ‘He could just switch his own off or throw it away and that would be that.’

‘I suspect,’ Slider said, ‘because it wasn’t just a two-way thing. I suspect there were other people using the same link, and if he couldn’t get Rogers’s back, he’d have to change the whole system, get a new number and make sure everyone knew it. It was a nuisance rather than a danger.’

‘So you really think it was a network, like on The Wire?’ Joanna said.

‘It’s just a supposition,’ Slider said. ‘Aude says he got a call early in the morning and then looked worried and said he had to go in to work. So it looks as though he got instructions from his paymasters.’

‘And was told to expect a caller, so that he would let them in without fuss.’

‘And then they shot him,’ Emily said. ‘Nasty but efficient.’

‘But doesn’t that rule out the ex-wife, whatsername?’ Joanna asked.

‘Amanda Sturgess? Not necessarily. She could have been part of the ring – if there was a ring – or the murder could have been quite separate and coincidental. Nothing to do with whatever he was doing for a living.’

‘But you said the killer was looking for the phone,’ Joanna objected.

‘I said that was just a supposition. We don’t know what he was looking for.’

‘Maybe he was looking for a will,’ Mr Slider put in, in his mild, unemphatic voice. ‘You still don’t know who inherits his millions.’

Slider smiled. ‘Or where they are, if there are any.’

‘P’raps these people paid him in cash,’ said Mr Slider. ‘He could have a hoard of it under the floorboards.