Slider filleted Porson’s expression and words. ‘You think it is Marler.’
Porson didn’t answer directly. ‘High-oxytane parties, drink, girls – there’s a lot of it goes on. OK, a bit of cocaine sniffing. Victimless crime. Nobody’s interest to interfere.’
‘Tyler Vance—’
‘Died of natural causes. Kaylee – who knows what happened to her. But there’ll be gnashing and wailing of teeth if this particular kettle of worms gets opened, I can promise you that. Have you thought who you’d be bringing down, if that list is a list of partygoers? The press would love it. They’d spread the lot of them all over the media, even if they’d done nothing wrong. Innuendo’d be enough for them.’
Slider was silent, waiting.
‘This surgeon?’
‘Sir Giles Canonbury,’ Slider supplied.
‘He’d just deny all knowledge.’
‘Yes, probably,’ Slider said. ‘But it might rattle him. And he might rattle somebody else. That’s when they make mistakes.’
Porson nodded without necessarily agreeing. ‘What is it you want? I mean, where do you see this ending?’
‘I want to know what happened to Kaylee.’
‘Just that? You’d leave it at that?’
Slider avoided that one. ‘I’ve got two more days,’ he said.
‘Anything you put up has got to be watertight. Airtight. Bomb-proof. Nucular shelter standard.’
Slider nodded, and turned away.
‘And you can’t interview Marler,’ Porson called after him.
‘I don’t want to,’ Slider replied. Not until I’ve got enough solid evidence to make him squirm.
Hart and Connolly were both supposed to be off on Saturday. ‘I’ll come in anyway, boss,’ said Connolly.
‘There’s no overtime,’ he reminded her.
‘I don’t mind. I’ll take a day off in lieu sometime. I’d like to see it through.’
‘Me too, boss,’ said Hart. She was back from taking Jessica home.
Connolly had been visiting Dakota, who was just up and preparing herself for her evening’s work. She’d said she couldn’t think of anywhere Shannon might go. She had lots of friends, but Dakota didn’t know any of them, apart from Kaylee, and that was only because she had come round to the house so often. Other girls had called from time to time, but Dakota didn’t know their names or where they lived.
‘All those little kids look the same to me, anyway,’ she said. As for relatives, they’d never had any, apart from each other and their mum and their brothers.
Connolly had made a quick and unannounced visit to Shannon’s mother Dee Walls, but Shannon was not there, and Dee seemed genuinely surprised that she was not at Dakota’s. Connolly had asked the neighbours on either side, but nobody had seen Shannon in months.
‘So unless she turns her phone on again, it all depends on Jessica persuading her to come in,’ Connolly concluded.
‘Nothing else you can do tonight,’ Slider said, and sent them off home. And took himself off to Harley Street, where Sir Giles Canonbury had a consultation surgery until nine thirty p.m.
The consultation and waiting rooms were on the first floor of the fine old Georgian house, and benefited from the high ceilings, mouldings and Adam fireplaces. The handsome secretary said she would fit Slider in between patients, but he was alone in the waiting room, so presumably Sir Giles’s sort of patients did not turn up before they had to. He was impressed by the silence in the room. The tall drawing-room windows must have been double glazed, for there was no traffic noise from outside, and the heavy, solid doors prevented any voices penetrating from other rooms. Slider sat with the heartbeat-slowing tick of the magnificent longcase clock in the corner for company. He didn’t read any of the many publications thoughtfully disposed on a table, for fear that the rustling of pages would be too loud.
At last the inner door opened and a prosperous-looking man in his sixties came out, followed by a lean man in a suit so beautiful he could only be a senior consultant. They shook hands, and Sir Giles said, ‘I’ll let you know as soon as I’ve had the results, and we can schedule another talk.’
The prosperous man walked past Slider without a glance. Sir Giles turned a blank gaze on Slider and invited him into the sanctum with a voice so dry you could have mopped up spills with it.
Canonbury was not much taller than Slider, but he made the most of his height, and his slimness made him look taller. His suit looked breathtakingly expensive; his tie a daring but not vulgar splash of colour; his shoes – Slider was susceptible to shoes – looked hand-made, and were lovingly polished. His grey hair, sparked with silver, was elegantly coiffed and his face was tanned, showing off his sharp blue eyes. You would have classed him as handsome without ever examining his features. Slider, who examined them, thought there was something unpleasant about his mouth. It looked both thin and loose.
‘Well, inspector, what can I do for you?’ he asked, moving behind his desk and indicating the comfortable leather chair on the opposite side. The desk was heavy, mahogany, antique, and empty apart from a reading lamp, a desk blotter and a silver pen holder. The room smelled of furniture polish and thick carpets, and without the clock was even more silent. It was intimidating.
Slider decided to plunge straight in. ‘I wonder if you’d like to tell me why you chose the name “Cobra”.’
For a moment there seemed to be stasis in the authoritative face opposite him. Then he frowned. ‘You mean the government committee, Cobra? The Cabinet Office Briefing Room committee? I’m afraid I’ve never been called to it.’
Deflection? Slider thought. ‘You know I don’t mean that. I’m talking about the name you took as an alias for the parties. I thought you might have chosen a snake because of the Rod of Asclepius.’
‘The surgeon’s staff? I see you are an educated man,’ said Canonbury. ‘But I still don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘Oh, I think you do,’ Slider said pleasantly. ‘I know the parties were supposed to be hedged about with secrecy, so that you could all feel secure, but you see, we have a witness – someone who was so disturbed by the death of Tyler Vance that they decided to come forward.’
The face frowned in innocent bewilderment, but Slider was sure there was something in the depths of the eyes – anger, or fear; something hard-edged, anyway. Or did he see it because he wanted to see it? That was always a risk when you got too involved with the victims. Was he making a monumental fool of himself?
‘I’m sorry, but you’re making no sense to me,’ Canonbury said, sounding absolutely genuine. ‘Is there a point to all this?’
In blood stepp’d in so far – nothing for it but to go on. ‘Naturally enough, you were the one who went downstairs to examine her. I suppose you were the only doctor there. The fact that you are a heart surgeon was just luck. And it was later established that she died of natural causes. A congenital heart defect.’
Canonbury looked like a man clutching at a thread of sense in a stream of nonsense. ‘Congenital heart defect? What did you say the name was?’
‘Tyler Vance.’
‘I’m sorry. I’ve never heard of her. She doesn’t sound like one of my patients.’
Slider smiled. ‘Good heavens, no. She was from the far other end of the social spectrum. She’d have been amazed to be examined by someone like you, if she hadn’t been past being surprised by anything by then.’
Canonbury got to his feet. ‘I’m sorry, but I have no idea what you’re talking about, and I’m afraid I haven’t time to sit and listen to nonsense. I have two more patients to see, and then I have to get over to Broadcasting House. I’m being interviewed on Newsnight about the Select Committee’s report on the NHS. I have, as you know, been giving evidence.’
Nicely done. I not only have connections to the media but to the government, and by the way I could buy and sell you.
Slider rose, too. ‘This won’t go away, you know,’ he said quietly. ‘You’ve had a lon
g run for your money, but you made a terrible mistake in disposing of Tyler the way you did. It’s like an avalanche building up outside the door. When the evidence is heavy enough, the door will burst in and you’ll all be swept away.’
Canonbury looked angry now. ‘You sound as if you’re quoting from a cheap thriller, but none of this means anything to me. I really think you must be delusional. Or drunk. Either way, I can’t listen to you any longer. I must ask you to leave.’
Slider nodded, looking at him sadly. ‘You haven’t long. You can still help yourself by coming forward and telling what you know. Putting yourself on the right side. It’s up to you.’
He walked out, leaving the door open. In the waiting room was a young woman, expensively dressed, but with a pale, fatigued face. It was tough when it got them that young, he thought. As he closed the outer door, he heard Canonbury’s voice, urbane but a little strained, saying, ‘I’ll be with you in just a moment, Mrs Taylor, but there’s a rather urgent telephone call I must make first.’
And he smiled.
Joanna was home for the evening, a rare pleasure these days. The orchestras were going through a phase where there was plenty of work, and like all freelances, they had to take everything they could get while they could get it, to guard against future dearth.
She’d invited Dad and Lydia to eat with them, and Dad had immediately offered to do the cooking. ‘You and Bill are both working full time. I’ve got nothing to do but enjoy myself,’ he rationalized. Dad’s cooking was no hardship – he had had to learn when Slider’s mother had died untimely, leaving her husband and son to fend alone.
So Joanna was hands-free to greet Slider as he came through the front door. She saw at once that he was tired, too tired even to talk, so she made him a gin and tonic, sat him down on the sofa and told him about her day instead. Slider sipped and listened. Trained as he was to hear the subtext, and the subtext to the subtext as well, he not only knew that she was entertaining him to take his mind off his troubles, but that she was enjoying being back at work, and busy. As a human being, and as Bill Slider, he was glad for her. As a man, he couldn’t help a little twinge of wistfulness that being his wife and mother to George wasn’t enough for her. And then as Bill Slider again he knew that sort of thinking was selfish and not to be indulged in – certainly never to be voiced.
It was complicated being a man in the twenty-first century. A bit like being a land-mine disposal expert. Somebody had to do it, but you were quite likely to get blown up for your pains.
She was talking about the programme for a concert. ‘This is the concert tomorrow night, is it?’ he asked, to show willing.
‘Tomorrow night at the Festival Hall, and the repeat on Sunday afternoon in Croydon,’ she said, with a faint frown. ‘Weren’t you listening?’
‘Just checking. You won’t have a rehearsal on Sunday, then?’
‘No, thank God.’
‘So we can have a proper Sunday lunch together?’
‘As long as it’s earlyish. It’s not a demanding programme – well, not for me, anyway. There’s that fiendish two-bar bassoon solo near the end of the finale of “Beethoven Four”. And to think I nearly took up the bassoon! Then my music teacher warned me not to choose an instrument there’s only two of in an orchestra. Less chance of getting work in the first place, and more chance of your mistakes being cruelly exposed.’
‘You’re enjoying being back, aren’t you?’ Slider said, to show he was listening.
‘It’s like I’ve never been away,’ she said. ‘Do you know, the main topic of controversy is the same now as it was six months ago?’
‘What’s that?’
‘Sleeveless dresses. The men resent having to wear heavy tail coats in overheated concert halls, when women can wear flimsy dresses, and they want the board to pass a rule that our long blacks have to have long sleeves. They say it’s about having a uniform look up on the platform, but it’s really just jealousy.’ She grinned. ‘We call it “The Right to Bare Arms”.’
Over supper they talked about ordinary things: George’s progress; Dad and Lydia’s next holiday – if, when, and where; the desirability of adding a conservatory to the house and whether, now that Joanna was working again, it could be afforded. Joanna had perceived that he didn’t want to talk, and tossed the conversational ball back and forth between her and Lydia; Mr Slider added the occasional comment, and watched his son with a countryman’s eyes. It was from him that Slider had learned the art and practice of observation: to tell from small signs what creatures had passed, and when, and why; to wait patiently and silently in the dusk to see the badgers emerge from their setts, or the deer come down to the pond to drink. Joanna looked from one to the other as she talked, and thought how alike they were. That was how Bill would look when he got old, she thought; and the knowledge made her feel warm and loose inside.
Slider listened with the top half of his brain. The underside was miserably churning over the consideration that he had made a horrible fool of himself with Sir Giles Canonbury, that the man really hadn’t known what he was talking about, had thought he was mad, and might well put in an official complaint about him to the IPCC; and from there his self-critical organ burst into life with the suggestion that the whole ‘case’ was a mare’s nest full of cockatrice’s eggs. All he really knew about Gideon Marler was that he was a good man who worked tirelessly for his constituency, supported local charities and was fighting for the police budget in a select committee. And this was the man he had been persecuting, on what evidence? That Peloponnos had rung him immediately after ringing Kaylee. He wanted to groan and bury his head in his hands. What had he been thinking?
He didn’t usually watch television in the evening, but he put it on for Newsnight, in the manner of one probing a mouth ulcer with the tip of the tongue. After the opening spiel, the presenter said, ‘Later in the programme: what’s in the future for the NHS? We were to have interviewed Sir Giles Canonbury, the eminent heart surgeon, who has been giving evidence to the Parliamentary Select Committee, but unfortunately we’ve been told that he’s indisposed, so instead we’ll be hearing from …’
Slider stopped listening. It might be nothing, but the cold weight in his heart told him it was something.
Hammersmith rang him horribly early, and he was summoned to a meeting with Borough Commander Mike Carpenter at half past eight. Everything about that was wrong – that the big boss should come in on Saturday was bad enough, but that he would get out of his warm bed for half past eight was ominous. Slider dragged himself in. Joanna gave him a look that told him she knew something was wrong, but, blessed woman that she was, she also divined that he didn’t want to talk about it, and refrained from asking him questions. She made him breakfast and watched him eat while she fed George his egg, and only picking a thread off the shoulder of his suit as she kissed him goodbye expressed her concern. But that was eloquent.
Slider was there at eight twenty, and Carpenter’s PA said he was already in. Indeed, his door was closed, and through it Slider could hear the sound of someone talking on the telephone, though he could not make out the words. It was SOP to keep the miscreant waiting for his thrashing. Slider sat, working the mouth ulcer like a man possessed.
The PA must have felt pity for him, because she said, ‘Sorry you’ve had to come in so early, but Mike’s down for a round of golf this morning so he’s had to fit several things in beforehand.’ Carpenter liked his staff to use his first name. On paper, it was supposed to make him more approachable. But since everyone in the Job knew the last thing a commander really wanted was to be approached, only the civilian staff availed themselves of the privilege.
The telephone voice within ceased, and the intercom buzzed. ‘Is Slider there?’ the voice squawked. ‘Send him in.’
Slider went in. Carpenter was a big man, well over six feet and muscular in proportion. Even sitting down behind his desk he seemed to tower over Slider. He was writing something and didn’t look up as Slider e
ntered, but gestured with his free hand for him to sit. It was a power-ploy Slider was familiar with. It was meant to make him feel small and insignificant, not even as important as that note that was being written. It was all wasted on him – he felt small and insignificant anyway.
Finally Carpenter stopped trying to make him a better person and looked up, putting down the pen and scowling. ‘I don’t know what the hell to do about you,’ he said abruptly. ‘Have you got a death wish, or something?’
‘Sir?’ Slider said, with what he hoped was maddening innocence. If you’re going to get eaten by the lions, sticking your tongue out won’t make things any worse.
‘Don’t give me “sir”!’ Carpenter snapped. ‘You were told, categorically, not to go after Mr Marler. To leave well alone. Do not touch. Well, weren’t you?’
Obviously he wanted an answer. ‘Yes, sir.’
‘And what do you go and do? You deliberately confront Sir Giles Canonbury in his own consulting room and accuse him of – well, I don’t know exactly what you think you’re accusing him of, but he seems to think you suspect him of some sort of illegal conspiracy with Gideon Marler. He wasn’t clear what, but he certainly doesn’t like having some low-grade policeman prance in and throw dirt at him. What the hell were you thinking?’
Slider rightly guessed that this was not a question and kept schtum.
Carpenter raged on. ‘He complained to Mr Marler, who you might be interested to know is a personal friend of the AC. Mr Marler told the AC exactly what he thought about this “persecution” of him and his friends – his word. The AC has been raising Cain on his behalf from Scotland Yard downwards, ending up with me. I don’t like being rung up at home by infuriated top brass, Slider. He had me on the carpet, and I don’t take kindly to my officers putting me in embarrassing positions. So what have you got to say for yourself?’
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