Body Line

You’ve never taken the house apart, have you?’

‘We had no reason to,’ Slider said, but he looked at his father thoughtfully. ‘Now you mention it, everyone does keep saying he paid for things in cash. Maybe we should go back and have a rummage. I’ve always said there was some more money somewhere, if only we could find it.’

‘But what were they paying him for?’ Joanna asked. ‘I’m sorry, Jim, but this pastry is nice.’

‘I’ll kill you later for that,’ Atherton said. ‘I suppose drugs is the obvious answer.’

‘It’s got to be something that’s worth a lot of money, if it was worth killing him for,’ Emily said.

‘Well, you’d think that,’ Atherton said, ‘but when it comes down to it, it’s surprising these days how little people will kill for. However, Rogers walked the walk, so let’s suppose for the moment that it was something lucrative.’

‘Ros Taylor said that after Rogers’s scandal, his friend Bernard Webber sorted everything out for him, squared the General Medical Council, and she thought he got him a job too. She said she thought he became a rep for a pharmaceutical company.’

‘I wasn’t thinking of those sorts of drugs,’ Joanna said.

‘Nor was I,’ said Atherton, ‘but a knowledge of legal drugs wouldn’t do you any harm with the other sort. And there’s no knowing that what he started in, he stayed in.’ He looked at his beloved. ‘What? You’ve got that expression – the mills of Stonax are grinding exceeding small.’

‘I did a bit more research this afternoon on the other people who were there that day Rogers assaulted Mrs Lescroit. Ros Taylor we know about, and she was downstairs when it happened, only came upstairs when the rumpus started. Then there was Stephanie, Mr Webber’s secretary, Anthea, Rogers’s secretary, and Eunice, his nurse.’ She extended a finger for each of the three women. ‘Anthea,’ she said, touching the first, ‘was Anthea Maclean, an Australian girl from Melbourne who’d been over here for four years, three of them with Mr Rogers. She went back to Australia a fortnight after the episode, and for all I know she’s there still. She got a job as a receptionist at the Royal Melbourne Hospital but she didn’t stay there long, only eight months, and I haven’t been able to trace her any further. Then there’s Stephanie.’ She touched the second finger. ‘Ros Taylor said she’d died in a traffic accident, and I managed to find the reports of that. She was living in Finchley and she was killed on her way home late at night, after an evening at the cinema. She told her flatmates she was going to the pictures but didn’t say who with. She was run down by a van travelling at high speed, which didn’t stop. No one was ever caught for it. And this was less than a month after the incident.’

‘Are you saying—’ Atherton began, but she shook her head at him.

‘Wait till I finish. Then there’s Eunice, the nurse.’ The third finger. ‘Ros Taylor said Eunice wasn’t happy about the Lescroit business being hushed up, and she left soon afterwards and got a nursing job at a private hospital. I managed to trace that. It was a BUPA hospital at Bushey, and Bernard Webber was consultant urologist there, so maybe he helped her get the job. But she didn’t stay there long. A bit less than six months. Then she committed suicide. Took an overdose.’ She looked round the watching faces. ‘The nurse’s way out.’

‘Are you trying to say you think Rogers had them all killed?’ Atherton said, seeing she had finished.

‘Don’t know about Anthea. She’s probably all right – but she did heave off to Australia pretty sharpish.’

‘What, afraid of being bumped off? Come on!’

‘I said, I don’t know about Anthea,’ Emily said with a trace of annoyance. ‘But don’t you think it’s odd that all three were got swiftly out of the way, and that two of them are dead?’

‘It’s always tempting to see a pattern in what is probably just coincidence,’ Slider said.

‘I’m just throwing it into the pot,’ Emily said with dignity. ‘I’m not claiming anything for it.’

‘All right,’ Slider said placatingly, ‘but if it’s not a coincidence, you’re reasoning that the three women were witnesses to a cover-up worth protecting; and that to stop them talking they were dealt with.’

‘It’s possible, that’s all I’m saying. Anthea encouraged to go home to Oz, where no one would be interested even if she did talk. Stephanie bumped almost straight away. Eunice bribed with a better job at higher pay, then nudged out of play when it proved she couldn’t be trusted.’

‘It sounds plausible,’ Joanna said, ‘but what could it have been that Rogers was afraid of? The main witness against him, Mrs Lescroit, had been bought off, and the GMC had given him the soft option. He was doing as well as could be expected. What was worth risking murder for?’

‘I don’t know,’ Emily said, with a reluctant grin. ‘I’m the researcher, not the writer.’

‘Interesting as it is for a speculation,’ Slider said, ‘I don’t see that it gets us anywhere with the present case.’

‘I was going to say that,’ said Mr Slider. ‘You want to know what he was doing last week, not ten years ago. There’s a last bit of pie going begging. Can I cut a bit for anyone?’

‘Not me, thanks, I’m saving room for pud,’ Emily said.

‘What do you mean, pud?’ Atherton demanded.

‘There’s no pud?’ Emily looked offended.

‘Slave my fingers to the bone, and that’s all the thanks I get,’ Atherton grumbled.

‘There is, isn’t there?’ Emily said, beguiling. ‘I know you.’

‘For God’s sake, woman—’

‘There’s a bit of cake left from last weekend,’ Joanna said hastily. ‘Fruit cake. You could have that with a bit of Wensleydale.’

‘Good idea,’ said Slider. ‘And a drop of malt to go with it?’

Joanna stood up. ‘I’ll get the gubbins, you do the malts.’ Mr Slider stood up as well, and together they cleared the table and went out to the kitchen. It was when she was laying the stuff out on the table that she said, ‘It occurs to me that you talked about four women in the building at the time of Rogers’s assault. But weren’t there five? Didn’t you say –’ to Slider – ‘that it turns out Amanda was there as well?’

‘Yes, that’s right,’ Slider said thoughtfully.

‘So what did she get out of it? The others got new jobs and tickets home.’

‘And killed,’ Emily reminded her.

‘Carrots and then sticks. But Amanda – nothing.’

‘She wasn’t a part of it,’ Atherton said. ‘She just happened to be there.’

‘Yes,’ said Slider. ‘But it’s funny how it all keeps coming back to her, isn’t it? I wish I knew what she was hiding. She’s involved, I know she is,’ he added in frustration. ‘I just can’t work out how.’

‘You’s de boss, Boss,’ Joanna said, patting his arm. ‘You’ll work it out.’

It turned into a lateish session. Mr Slider went off to bed around ten, saying he couldn’t manage these late nights like the young people, and the others sat round the fire with more drinks and by unspoken consent left the subject of the case and talked about any-and everything else. And when finally Slider began stifling yawns, Emily goosed Atherton with a look and said they had better be going. ‘Don’t forget it’s a school night.’

‘Is it?’ Joanna asked of Slider. ‘Are you working tomorrow? Don’t forget Kate and Matthew are coming to stay.’

‘I hadn’t forgotten. I shall have to go in, but I hope not to stay too long. There’s stuff being looked into, but until we get answers there’s nothing for me to do but make encouraging noises.’

‘Can I look at your baby before we go?’ Emily asked, and Joanna took her upstairs.

‘I think she thinks babies are catching,’ Atherton said to Slider when they were alone.

‘Oh? Are you at that point already?’

‘No use asking me,’ said Atherton. ‘Isn’t that sort of thing always the woman’s decision?’

‘Well, you are allowed an input,’ Slider said.

‘Don’t let’s get smutty.’

‘Seriously, do you want a child?’

‘If I wanted one, I’d want it with Emily,’ Atherton said after some thought.

‘Very circumspect,’ said Slider.

The telephone hauled Slider gasping and flapping out of a deep dream on to the dry shore of awake. The bedside clock said ten past three and it was as cold as the dead of night can be. He reached for the bawling receiver and had a moment of blessed silence before the voice of O’Flaherty, the night relief sergeant, took over in