Dead End

by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles

  ‘Just a moment, are you saying that Marcus is an addict?’ Slider asked.

  ‘No, strictly a recreational user. You could almost like him better if he was – there’d be some excuse for him then. But he’s just a self-indulgent little parasite.’

  ‘I’m getting a sort of feeling here that you don’t like him,’ Slider said tentatively.

  ‘He disgusts me,’ Atherton said.

  ‘He may be a spoiled brat but it doesn’t make him a murderer. From what you’ve said his father keeps him supplied with money. Why should he take the risk of killing his grandfather when he can have anything he wants for the asking? Radek’s money goes to Fay, anyway, not to Marcus.’

  ‘Far more likely Coleraine’s feeling the pinch, if he’s funding his son’s delightful habits,’ Norma agreed.

  ‘It’d come to the same thing, wouldn’t it?’ McLaren said as best he could. He had just finished eating a packet of McVitie’s Chocolate Homewheat and was hooking squashy chocolatey bits from the corners of his gums with his little finger. ‘I mean, if his old man was up the swannee, and his old lady came in for the wonga, it’d come to him anyway. She’d wedge him up all right.’

  ‘English is such a beautiful language when spoken by an expert,’ Atherton said admiringly. ‘Why shouldn’t Marcus and Murray have dreamed up the whole scheme in an idle moment – of which, let’s face it, they have an unlimited supply – just for the fun of it? The idea of diverting the money from tight-fisted grandpa to soppily generous mamma would just be an added incentive.’

  ‘You take a large size in assumptions,’ Slider reproved. ‘What about Marcus’s movements that day?’

  ‘Ah, now, there’s the really interesting bit,’ Atherton said. ‘He says he was mooching about at home all morning, which rings true; left home at noon and went to see Murray, got there at half past one and stayed the rest of the evening. Murray confirms it all like a paid-up member. So for the crucial period they are each other’s alibi.’

  ‘How convenient,’ Slider said wearily.

  ‘Damnable, isn’t it? Covent Garden being what it is, there must have been hundreds of people around, any one of whom might have seen Marcus arrive. The problem will be finding them.’

  ‘But hang on,’ Anderson said, ‘how did Marcus know Murray would be there? Murray called in sick that morning. He should have been at work. Marcus would’ve known that, surely?’

  ‘Right. But if Murray wasn’t in, Marcus was going to pop into the Opera House and get his key to let himself in. Murray was a friendly soul, not above giving his mates the run of his gaff.’ Atherton shrugged. ‘As an alibi it’s like a string vest – it fits all right, but it’s full of holes.’

  ‘It’s a better alibi than Coleraine’s got,’ Norma pointed out.

  ‘Which is not saying a whole hell of a lot,’ Atherton retorted.

  Slider cut through the witty badinage. ‘Now here’s something. Marcus left home at twelve and got to Murray’s at one-thirty – an hour and a half for a half-hour journey. Coleraine left the office at twelve-thirty and says he got home at a quarter to two – an hour and a quarter for a half-hour journey. Where’s the missing time? Suppose he met Marcus at twelve-thirty somewhere near the office?’

  ‘You said Marcus phoned him at a quarter to twelve and rang off at about twelve,’ Norma said. ‘They could have arranged to meet. It fits all right. But what’s it got to do with us?’

  ‘Do you think they were both in on the job, guv?’ Atherton said. ‘That they met to arrange the murder?’

  He shook his head. ‘No, I can’t see that. But suppose Marcus were in some worse than usual financial crisis, and after meeting him and hearing about it Coleraine went home in despair and decided the only way out was to kill Radek?’

  ‘But he’d taken the gun the day before,’ Mackay pointed out.

  ‘There’s no reason he couldn’t have planned it earlier,’ Atherton said. ‘The meeting with Marcus might have been incidental.’

  Norma said, ‘If it was planned in advance why didn’t Coleraine sort himself an alibi while he was at it?’

  ‘Typical amateur. All right, maybe it wasn’t planned. He might not have taken the gun for that: Radek might have lent it to him for some reason, and the fact that he had it gave him the idea of the murder.’

  ‘At all events, there was something going on there, and it’s a probable twelve to seven that it has something to do with the murder,’ Slider said. ‘And I’m sure the paintings are in it too. Christie’s say they were a very good investment, likely to turn a good profit in as short a time as a year. Why did he buy them? Why didn’t he insure them? Why didn’t he report the theft?’

  There was a generous silence in answer to all these questions.

  ‘All right, action,’ Slider said. ‘I want to find out what state Coleraine’s business was in. Norma, you’ve got a good head for figures. Find out who the auditors are, talk to them, and to the bank – the firm’s and his own private one. Any irregularities, unusual transactions, change of pattern – you know the form.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Then I want to find out if Coleraine did meet Marcus that day. Restaurants, cafés, pubs in the area – probably they would have sat down somewhere to talk.’

  ‘That sounds like a job for Superman,’ Norma murmured, looking at Atherton.

  ‘Yes, all right,’ Slider nodded. ‘But if you don’t get a bite – sorry – try street traders, newspaper vendors, everything. If they walked about the streets talking, probably heatedly, someone must have seen them. Take Anderson with you. He’ll help you resist temptation. And I want the home end of Coleraine’s alibi checked out. Mackay, McLaren, try the tube station, try the neighbours, find if anyone saw him arrive or go out again.’

  ‘And you, guv?’ Atherton enquired.

  ‘Following up an idea. I’m going to see a lady about a bit of a dog.’

  CHAPTER NINE

  It’s a Game of Two Halves

  It was quite obvious that Helena Goodwin had been crying over her keyboard: her eyelids were swollen and the wings of her nostrils were red, though she had repaired her make-up and seemed composed when she let Slider in.

  ‘Alec – Mr Coleraine – isn’t in today,’ she said apologetically. ‘I only came in to try to catch up with some work while it’s quiet.’

  ‘That’s all right,’ Slider said. ‘It was really you I wanted to speak to.’ He glanced at his watch, although he knew perfectly well what the time was. ‘Look, I don’t know what time you were thinking of knocking off, but would it be too early for me to buy you a drink? If you don’t mind my saying so, you look as though you could do with one.’

  She turned her head. ‘I’m sorry. I must look a wreck.’

  ‘Not at all, but my compassion circuits keep switching in and it plays havoc with my logic. How about a large gin and tonic? I’ve got a nice line in shoulders to cry on.’

  She looked at him cautiously as if unsure how much of anything he was offering her, and then gave a slightly tremulous smile. ‘You’re very persuasive. All right, I’ll give it up for today. Can you wait while I lock everything up?’

  A little while later they were seated in a comfortable corner of a dimly lit pub in St Martin’s Lane. Around them was the usual early evening clientele of a few anonymously tweedy men reading the papers, two reps with baggy suits and baggier eyes standing at the bar with two packs of Embassy, two gold lighters and two double Scotches in front of them, and some suburban couples done up regardless with time to kill before their pre-theatre meal. Mrs Goodwin had evidently been doing some thinking during Slider’s lengthy absence at the bar trying to get served by a kohl-eyed blonde so laid back she was almost comatose; for when he had slid onto the plush banquette beside her, she said, ‘I think there are some things you ought to know about Alec Coleraine and me.’

  The sentence together with the red eyes told him everything in a nutshell, but he lifted his glass to her encouragingly, and while she too
k a therapeutic slug he said, ‘I should be glad if you would tell me everything you can. I promise you I am very discreet.’

  ‘Yes, you look as though you are,’ she said, eyeing him judiciously. ‘Tell me, do people often feel compelled to pour their hearts out to you? You look like the kind of man who has children who adore him.’

  ‘Well, you’re half right,’ he said with a rueful smile. ‘Policemen get home so little it’s hard to sustain a home life without a great deal of patience from the rest of the family. Who’s looking after your little boy today?’

  ‘He’s with my mother. She’s always asking to have him, but she lives in Sussex so getting him to her is sometimes a problem.’ She took another drink. ‘She doesn’t think I’m a very good mother. I sometimes think it might be better to leave him with her permanently. He seems to like her better than me anyway. “Grandma’s more fun than you,” he says.’

  ‘You have the stresses of work to contend with,’ Slider said. ‘It’s never a fair comparison.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What does your ex-husband do?’

  ‘He’s a management consultant.’ She met his eyes. ‘So there were lots of opportunities for comparison, fair and otherwise, as he travelled around the country. My mother warned me not to marry him. Said he wasn’t steady enough. Isn’t it funny how it’s only good advice no-one listens to? But when he left she said it was my fault for not staying at home and being a housewife.’

  ‘Have you been on your own for long?’

  ‘Almost four years,’ she said. ‘Nick left me just after Mr Antrobus retired and I transferred to Alec. I suppose that’s why it all happened – with him and me. I was in a vulnerable state, you see.’

  ‘And he was there. Nothing propinks like propinquity.’

  She smiled. ‘True. But he has a great deal of charm, you know. You probably haven’t seen him at his best.’

  ‘I wasn’t criticising,’ he said quickly. ‘So how did it come about, exactly?’

  ‘Oh, the usual corny way. Hackneyed as hell, only when it happens to you it all seems fresh and original, of course. We worked late together a few times, started going for drinks on the way home now and then. Then it was going for meals and working at weekends. Then one Saturday night we went for a meal and sat so long at the restaurant talking and laughing that the tubes had stopped, so he insisted on taking me home in a taxi. I invited him in. Ben was in Sussex and Fay was at some textile exhibition in Brussels—’ She shrugged eloquently. ‘Crescendo of music, soft-focus lens, montage of limbs, firelight and ecstatic expressions. It’s been done to death on the screen.’

  ‘But you loved him.’

  ‘Madly. But why are you talking in the past tense?’

  ‘I assumed from the fact that you’d been crying and having sleepless nights that it was over between you. Forgive me if I was wrong.’

  ‘No, you’re not wrong. It’s been coming for a long time, but I’ve tried to pretend, even though it was only myself I was cheating. I’ve had to come to the conclusion that whatever he says, he’s never going to leave his wife for me. In fact. I’m not even sure any more whether he ever meant it, or whether it was just what he said to string me along. I haven’t said anything to him yet – I suppose that’s cowardice, or hoping it will still come out right somehow.’ She sighed and was silent a moment. ‘Funny how you go on and on doing something you know is bad for you in the hope that it will turn out not to be. And most of the time it isn’t even pleasurable – hanging around, pretending, being disappointed, feeling humiliated. The nice bit, being with him and actually enjoying it, works out at about ten per cent and the bad bit ninety per cent. Why do we do it?’ She drained her glass and put it down. ‘Do you think I could have another one of these?’ Catching his very slight hesitation she met his eyes and said, ‘Don’t worry, I won’t get drunk.’

  ‘It wasn’t that,’ he said quickly. ‘I just didn’t want to interrupt your flow.’

  ‘You’re very frank, aren’t you?’ she said curiously.

  ‘There wouldn’t be any point in being anything else with a woman as intelligent as you.’

  ‘You overestimate me.’ Her eyes filled suddenly with tears which she tried to blink back. ‘I want to be lied to as much as the next woman. It’s more comfortable than the truth. But your professional interest is better than nothing.’

  ‘My interest is both professional and personal,’ Slider said, holding her gaze, ‘and that’s the truth. Otherwise I could have sent someone else to talk to you.’

  ‘Thank you,’ she said, a little unevenly. ‘I believe you. Now if you’d be so very kind as to get me another gin. I’ll blow my nose and pull myself together. Then I’ll tell you the rest.’

  Slider padded off to the bar feeling both hopeful and glum. A good secretary must know a great deal both about the business and the boss’s private life, and a mistress gets told things that are kept from a wife. And if she had a beef against Coleraine, she’d be more likely to spill the beans. The glumness stemmed from her recital of the old, old story, and the recollection of his own ignoble part in the same play on a different stage. ‘The nice bit works out at ten per cent and the bad bit ninety per cent.’ Oh Joanna! Had she felt like that all that time? Surely not – he hoped not. He had really meant it – he hadn’t been stringing her along. But the sad fact was that it must have felt just the same, whether he meant it or not. Without in the least meaning to he had treated her badly, and if she now made him suffer it was no more than he deserved, the bus fare to hell being paid with good intentions. Had Alec Coleraine been tortured by guilt while he romped, or had he merely felt like laddo-me-buck; rich and shameless, fingers stuck in the jelly bowl, getting his just desserts?

  When he returned, she smiled at him more comfortably, as if they had long been friends. ‘Thanks. I feel better now. You’d better ask me the questions you want, or I shall maunder on self-indulgently for hours.’

  ‘I’m in no hurry. You talk. Tell me about when it was good between you. It can’t always have been nine to one against.’

  ‘No, of course not. For about the first two years it was wonderful. The only difficulty was how to see enough of each other. And then it was up and down for about a year, wonderful when I believed we had a future and terrible when I doubted it. And this last year it’s been getting worse all the time. He’s been moody, depressed, irritable. I’ve seen he’s had something on his mind, and sometimes I hoped it was us, but mostly I knew it wasn’t, which made it worse when he took his tempers out on me. And finally I discovered—’ She stopped and her expression hardened.

  ‘Yes?’ Slider prompted gently, though he’d guessed, of course.

  ‘He’s been seeing someone else,’ she said, fixing her eyes on the stem of her glass as she revolved it in her fingers. ‘I think it’s only recent, but even so it’s hard to believe. He still says he loves me, that he can’t live without me; but for the last few weeks he’s made excuses every time I’ve wanted to see him outside work. And I can’t do a thing right any more, and he flares up at me over the least thing. I think he’s been hoping to provoke me into breaking off with him, so as to save him the trouble. Bastard!’ A silence. ‘The difficulty now is what do I do about my job?’ She flicked him a stormy glance. ‘Oh, I know, I should have thought of that before getting involved with my boss. My own fault. Doesn’t make it any easier though.’

  ‘You’ve been worried about your job for other reasons lately, haven’t you?’

  The fingers stopped their restless twisting. ‘Why do you ask that?’

  ‘It wasn’t just sexual infidelity that was making Alec tense and withdrawn. There’s something else wrong – probably financial. You’ve had suspicions and they’ve made you feel disloyal, but you can’t entirely suppress them. Am I right?’

  ‘Quite a clairvoyant,’ she said, trying to sound flippant and only managing nervous. ‘Do you do this at parties?’

  ‘You’ve no reason not to tell me now,’ he went on.
‘Apart from anything else, it may recently have got more serious, too serious for the ordinary rules of loyalty to apply – even if he hadn’t already forfeited any right to your support.’ She didn’t agree or deny. He’d got to help her begin. ‘Does it in some way involve Marcus?’

  She took a deep breath, and then let it out slowly in a sigh. ‘Yes, I think so. At least, I think that’s what’s at the bottom of it. Ever since he dropped out of college – oh!’ She clenched her fist and thumped it softly on the tabletop. ‘Selfish, ungrateful, self-centred little swine! He doesn’t care who he hurts. Everything’s me, me, me – and Alec gives in, every time, the idiot. He’s just besotted with that boy. We argued about it sometimes. “I know you’re right,” he’d say, “but I can’t help it. I love him.” Only child, you see – I think Fay couldn’t have any more – and he’s such a good-looking boy, too, and charming when he wants to be. Have you met him?’ Slider shook his head. ‘Spoiled, I suppose. Unless it’s something inherent. Alec’s selfish, and Fay likes to have her own way. Maybe having it on both sides, it got concentrated. His grandfather, from what I heard, was an Olympic-class me-ist.’

  ‘How did Marcus get on with his grandfather?’

  ‘Oh, all right, I think. He liked anyone who flattered and spoiled him. And I think he found it useful to take sides and play one member of the family off against another. Sir Stefan wanted him to be a musician. Fay didn’t mind what he was as long as it wasn’t anything to do with music. Alec wanted him to go into the law. But Marcus couldn’t see why he should have to work for a living at all, when everybody around him had loads of cash.’

  ‘And had they?’

  She frowned. ‘I would have said so, yes. Sir Stefan wouldn’t part with a penny of his, of course, but I thought Fay and Alec between them had plenty. But just lately I’ve begun to wonder. You were right about that.’ She met Slider’s eyes. She was plainly very worried.