‘And then there were the people who had to die to protect Bernard’s secret,’ Slider went on. ‘Stephanie, Eunice, David, Catriona. They didn’t benefit.’
He thought of Helen Aldous as well – moved away from Cloisterwood when Rogers showed an interest in her. Framed for stealing drugs – she had had a lucky escape.
‘But it was—’ she began to protest, and then saw the futility of it. She closed her eyes. ‘Oh God,’ she said. ‘Oh God. What have I got myself into?’
‘You know very well,’ Slider said. ‘You knew the day I first came here and told you David was dead. You knew who had killed him, and you knew what your part in it was. I could see it in your face.’
Her eyes flew open. ‘He was going to blow the whistle on the whole scheme,’ she cried. ‘He rang me, he kept ringing me, and I kept trying to talk him out of it. He said he’d had a crisis of conscience. A crisis of cowardice, more like! He was afraid of getting caught, that was all. I told him there was no possible way he could be caught. But Bernard said he was a weak link, because of the women – he loved talking big to them and flashing his money. Sooner or later, Bernard said, he’d let something out.’
‘You told Webber David was going to blow the whistle?
She whitened. ‘I had to! I couldn’t let it all be destroyed. I thought he would take David off the job – retire him. Give him enough money to be comfortable. David wanted to sail round the world on that boat of his. It would have taken him right out of the way. When Bernard said he’d sort it out, that he’d make sure David didn’t spoil everything—’
‘Webber said that? What were his exact words?’
‘He said, “Don’t worry, I won’t let him spoil everything. Leave it to me, I’ll sort it out.”’
‘And you’ll swear to that?’
She looked at him whitely. ‘Does it come to that?’
‘It comes to that. It’s him or you.’
Her mouth hardened. ‘Then it’s him.’ And weakened again. ‘But, oh God, you don’t understand. We were
‘But he couldn’t leave David like that,’ Slider said. ‘A man who likes women and tells them things? He couldn’t take the risk. You don’t make weak links comfortable – you eliminate them. And when I came to tell you David was dead, you knew that was what had happened. Bernard had him killed.’
‘Yes,’ she whispered.
‘Then he had David’s latest girlfriend killed as well, just in case. Now he must be wondering whether you can safely be left, knowing everything, as you do, and perhaps having doubts – because whatever you thought about the transplants, you never expected it to come to murder. David’s death shocked you. Have you told Webber how you feel about that yet? Because if you have, I’m afraid time is running out fast for you.’
‘No,’ she said. ‘I haven’t said – anything. We’ve hardly spoken since – it happened. We’re not lovers any more – haven’t been for years. We’re just friends. We’ve only talked once or twice but – not – mentioned—’
‘You spoke with your friend and your husband’s murder wasn’t mentioned? Don’t you think that was odd?’ She bit her lip but didn’t answer. ‘If killing David was necessary, logic demands he has to kill you, too. Probably it’s because of your relationship that he’s even hesitated. Perhaps he’s fond of you. But he was fond of David, too.’
‘He’s a good man,’ she said. It sounded puzzled. ‘He’s a good man, a surgeon. He saves lives. He only ever wanted to do good. I don’t understand how he could get from there to killing David. His friend.’
Megalomania, Slider thought, though he didn’t say it aloud. When power allows you to sidestep the rules and decide for yourself what’s right and what isn’t, the logical end is defending that right to decide. If you are right, anyone who stands in your way is obviously wrong, and must be removed from the path of the greater good.
She was flagging now; her hands shook as she took a tissue to blow her nose. He must get her moving while he could.
‘Webber must be stopped, before there are any more victims,’ he said. ‘Whatever you think about the organ transplants, you know that murder is wrong. You must come with me now to the station and make a statement about this whole business – every detail.’
She looked up at him, startled out of some train of thought. ‘I can’t,’ she said.
‘You will,’ he said. ‘Only if you come in now, voluntarily, and tell us everything, help us to stop this man, can there be any hope for you to avoid implication in his crimes. We can protect you from him,’ he said. ‘And we may be able to save something from the wreck.’
‘My agency,’ she said. She sounded dazed.
‘But you have to come now. A full statement.’
It took her two attempts to get out of the chair. She seemed dead weary. He helped her find her handbag and coat, turn off lights. As they went towards the door, he thought of one other thing he had wanted to ask, and might perhaps not have another opportunity to do, because it was not likely that he would be the one to conduct the formal interview at the station, not with the international implications of the case.
‘Why did David call the boat the
She didn’t seem to find the question odd. Probably she was beyond discriminating now. ‘No, he called it that. He loved that poem. We all did Hopkins at school in those days. “I caught this morning morning’s minion.” You know?’
‘I know,’ said Slider. ‘“Dappled dawn-drawn falcon in his riding.”’
‘He said it was a beautiful name.
Commander Wetherspoon, their boss at Hammersmith, was a tall, thin man with grizzled, tufty hair that gave him a mysterious resemblance to an Airedale terrier. His squarish, chalky-pink face was fixed in lines of rigid disapproval and his eyes were frosty as he looked down his nose at Slider and said, ‘Well done.’
He disliked Slider intensely, as Slider well knew, and hated having to speak even two words of commendation. It was obviously at Porson’s insistence that he had brought himself to this sorry pass. He couldn’t find it in his heart to say more, so Porson had to take over the attaboy and do it properly.
‘Could have saved us a diplomatic incident,’ he concluded. ‘The Home Secretary’s relieved. Our European counterbands too – they’ll be grateful. We’ve got a whole new ball curve now.’
Wetherspoon gave Porson a scornful look – he didn’t like the old man either – and dismissed Slider with a curt nod. Slider removed his thorn from Wetherspoon’s side, closing the door quietly behind him, secure in the knowledge that he’d hear it all later.
The fact of the Chinese government’s involvement had, as Porson put it, opened up a whole new can of wax, as far as the European side went. Things got very hot very high up and very quickly. The Justice Commissioner had rushed into meetings with the High Representative and the two of them had bearded the head of Europol and the Excise Commissioner. The upshoot was, Porson explained, that Europe didn’t want to upset the Chinese so near the date of the next trade round. The elegant, feline EU Trade Commissioner had mopped his brow and pleaded on the one side, while the tough, swarthy Dutch Excise Chief had torn his hair and howled on the other. Then the Assistant Commissioner, Specialist Crime Directorate, Metropolitan Police and the Deputy Commissioner, Specialist Operations, Metropolitan Police, had had a word with the Commissioner, Metropolitan Police, who had a friendly chat with his Dutch opposite number and put the Home Secretary in to bat, with instructions to block everything until stumps.
The result was that the Euro lot were not going to scoop up Jaheem Bodeker until after he had done the exchange at sea, which meant that the Met and the SCD – the Specialist Crime Directorate – were going to have the chance to clean up their end after all.
It was, as Amanda Sturgess revealed during her night-long questioning, Jerry McGuinness who had taken over Rogers’s courier role. As Slider had guessed, there was a new boat, not quite as lovely as the
