‘So what’s the bad news?’ she reverted. ‘You have to work tomorrow?’
‘Got it in one. I have to go to Southwold.’
‘How long will that take?’
‘I don’t know. It’s about two and half hours to drive it. What happens then depends on what we find.’
‘We?’
‘Atherton’s going with me.’
‘Oh.’ She thought a moment. ‘Well, I half expected you wouldn’t be around. I thought, as it’s supposed to be nice tomorrow, we’d go and have a picnic in Kew Gardens, have a good run around, and look at the Steam Museum on the way back. I wonder if Emily would like to join us.’
He pushed himself off the wall, put his arms round her and kissed the back of her neck. She stopped washing up for a moment to turn her head to him. ‘What was that for?’
‘I can’t tell you how comforting it is that you don’t give me hell for having to work,’ he said.
‘What use would that be?’
‘No use. But some people would still give a person hell,’ he said. ‘Some people did.’
‘Silly. We don’t have enough time together as it is. Why waste it on hell?’
‘Wonder woman,’ he said, and let her go.
‘Is the case going to break soon?’ she asked. ‘Is that what the trip’s about?’
‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I can only hope so.’
Kate appeared in the doorway, eyes everywhere. ‘Were you two smooching
‘It’s only the second smooch of the evening,’ Joanna complained. ‘You make it sound like non-stop romance.’
‘Well it’s yukky when old people do it.’
‘I thought you were watching TV,’ said Slider pointedly.
‘Adverts,’ Kate said. ‘I’m hungry again. Is there any cake?’
Kate was always eating, and was as thin as a rake. Good genes – or a hyperactive metabolism. Or both. Irene was the same. Long may it last, Slider thought.
‘I could make everyone Bournvita,’ Joanna said. She and Slider exchanged an amused look.
‘I didn’t know you had any,’ Slider said. ‘Do they still make it?’
‘I’ve got hot chocolate. It’s much the same.’
‘Oh, yeah, hot chocolate,’ Kate said. ‘Cool!’
‘Not, it’ll be hot,’ Slider corrected.
Kate looked scornful. ‘You’re not a bit funny, you know,’ she said with imperishable dignity.
‘Southwold, the last posh seaside resort,’ Atherton said. ‘Houses here cost as much as in London.’
‘Didn’t I read somewhere that the government’s letting the coastal defences go?’
‘Yes, and they say the rivers on either side of Southwold will back up and refill the marshes and the town will become an island. At which point,’ Atherton said, ‘the townsfolk will probably rejoice. Well, we’ve got a nice day for it.’ The bitter north wind had dropped at last, and although it was overcast, at least it was dry. ‘It was nice of Joanna to think of inviting Emily to the picnic. She was a bit miffed that I was having to work.’
‘It’ll be nice for Jo as well,’ Slider said. ‘They’re going to play rounders after they’ve eaten, to wear the children out. It’s a bit like having dogs – now there’s no PT at schools you have to run them about until they’re exhausted at the weekend or they chew up the furniture.’
It continued overcast until they reached the turn-off for Southwold, which had its own microclimate: you could see a clear division in the sky all along the coast, grey to one side and blue to the other. The sea sparkled, deep blue, and the leaves were further along here, with the hedges greening and the oak already in olive-yellow curls. ‘I can see why people would want to live here,’ Slider said.
Atherton shuddered. ‘I’m with Norma on this one. There’s no life outside London.’ They were just entering the little town. ‘There’s Station Approach. Well, that was easy.’
Southwold had had a railway once, and at that time extra roads of late-Victorian and Edwardian terraced cottages and semis had been added around the ancient core of what would otherwise have remained effectively a village. A drive-past established that Rogers’s house was a semi in dark red brick, with a slate roof and bay windows on both floors, a typical 1890s house, solid and adaptable, of the type known as ‘London dog-leg’ which could be seen in suburbs all over the country.
Slider went past again and then found a place to park in the next street. ‘Did you see anyone about?’ he asked.
‘Anyone watching the place, you mean? No.’
‘All right. Let’s go. But keep your eyes peeled.’
Slider went alone up to the door, while Atherton stayed on the other side of the road, but there was no answer to his knock, and the place felt empty. He rejoined Atherton, looking at his watch. ‘It’s still church time. That might be where she is. I think we should wait for a bit and see if she comes back.’ There was a little scrap of green more or less opposite the house, with a bench, presumably for the convenience of people waiting at the bus stop there. They sat down. ‘Try not to look like a policeman,’ Slider said.
‘Try yourself,’ Atherton said. ‘I’ve got this.’ He pulled out a newspaper from his pocket and unfolded it.
‘Is that today’s?’ Slider said, surprised – they had started off early.
‘No, it’s yesterday’s. I haven’t read it yet. I thought I might have a chance to read it in the car, but it comes in handy now as a stage prop.’
‘As long as no one notices it’s yesterday’s.’
Atherton rolled his eyes. ‘Oh, please! Most people wouldn’t notice if their own leg dropped off.’
There were remarkably few people about, and very few cars, and it was pleasantly restful, Slider thought, sitting in the sunshine, which actually had quite a bit of warmth to it, and listening to the sparrows bickering in nearby hedges while Atherton read his paper. He leaned back and half-closed his eyes, hoping they looked like ordinary people. He saw no sign of anyone who might be a villain, no men sitting in parked cars or loitering purposelessly within sight of the house. He hoped there was not a more efficient and professional surveillance going on, but he doubted there would be. If they had been going to kill the wife as a risk, surely they would have done it at the same time as Rogers.
Fifteen minutes later a woman came along the pavement on the other side of the road, and Slider knew instinctively that it was their quarry, even before she slowed. She cast a nervous glance around, but it passed with hardly a hesitation over the man absorbed in his newspaper and the one dozing in the sun, and she stopped before Number 23 and reached into her handbag for her key.
‘It’s her,’ Slider said to Atherton without moving his lips. ‘Let me go first – don’t want to frighten her. Come over when I signal.’
Atherton observed with amused approval how Slider could move like a cat when he had to, was across the road in a flash and yet managed not to appear to be hurrying. The woman had her key in and the door was opening when Slider got up beside her, and Atherton saw her jolt with shock. But the guv was a very soothing and reassuring sort of bod. He was discreetly showing his warrant card, talking all the while, and the woman was looking at him with saucer eyes like a rabbit before a snake. Now she flicked a glance across at Atherton, nodded slightly; Slider gestured to him to come; and they went inside, leaving the door ajar for him.
They were in the hall when Atherton went in, shutting the door behind him. Slider was helping her off with her coat, he saw with amusement. Probably she had been at church. She wasn’t wearing a hat, but she had on a smart dress and coat, and plain, low-heeled shoes. She turned to look at Atherton with wide, anxious eyes.
‘This is my colleague, Jim Atherton,’ Slider said. Atherton proffered his warrant card, but she only glanced at it briefly: she had accepted Slider now, and therefore what came with him. She nodded to him, and turned her attention back to Slider.
She was quite a surprise to Atherton. He had expected a busty babe, if not a bimbo, or failing that, at least a sleek and high-powered beauty. This, after all, was the one of all the many that Rogers had actually married and wanted to leave everything to. But Helen Marie Aldous was nothing you would pick out in a beauty contest. She was not even terribly young – probably in her late thirties or early forties. She was around five-foot five, with an unremarkable figure – not fat, but solidly put together – and dark brown hair in the sort of practical, short, curled style that Atherton had heard Connolly describe as a ‘Mammy-hairdo’. As to her face, it was perfectly pleasant, but
