Outside, Atherton said, ‘Well, I don’t know that that gets us any further forward. Except that she has a BMW. And she gave Frith an alibi.’
‘Unfortunately. If she didn’t leave for work until eight fifteen he’s covered,’ Slider said. ‘Even on the normal schedule he couldn’t have left at six and been in Shepherd’s Bush at ten past.’
‘But if he was doing the job for her, we can’t take her word,’ said Atherton. ‘And as there were just the two of them at home it can’t be disproved. Bummer. When my love swears that she is made of truth, I do believe her, though I know she lies.’
‘Eh?’
‘Shakespeare.’
‘The bummer, or the last bit?’
‘Both. That business about the phone calls—’
‘Doesn’t hold water. That last phone call wasn’t just chit-chat. I’d like to get hold of her phone records, see if she rang him as well, during that period. Something was going on; and he ended up dead. If she didn’t arrange it, she knows more about it than she’s telling us.’
‘But getting it out of her will be the trick,’ said Atherton. They paused at the kerb. ‘What now?’
‘Back to the factory. I still want to find out what happened with Rogers and the female patient.’
‘Isn’t that old history?’
‘Maybe. But I have a feeling it may be important.’
‘Oh, I’ll go with your feelings any day,’ Atherton said easily. ‘If you could bottle them, you wouldn’t need to train detectives, just inject them. But before we leave – there’s a superlative sandwich shop just round the corner, and it is getting on for lunchtime. Shall we stock up?’
‘When you say superlative,’ Slider said suspiciously, ‘you aren’t talking grilled tofu on sun-dried tomato focaccia and with beetroot and courgette coleslaw, are you?’
EIGHT
Beauty in a Mist of Tears
Atherton’s reply was lost because behind Slider’s head he had seen the red door open again, and the pale young woman come out. He nudged his boss and Slider turned to see her pause, look round, spot them, hesitate, and come towards them.
‘Hello. Did you want to speak to us?’ Slider said kindly.
‘It was my lunch break anyway, but I thought I might catch you,’ she said, with a frowning, uneasy peep upwards at them – she was small as well as thin, almost a childlike figure. ‘I don’t know if I should – if it’s important . . .’
‘Anything you can tell us could be important,’ Slider said. ‘Is it about your boss?’
‘Sort of. Well, it’s David. I’ve been seeing him.’
Slider suddenly realized the signs of a heavy cold were in fact signs of weeping. ‘Then I definitely think you should talk to us,’ he said.
She glanced upwards at the window of the office. ‘Not here,’ she said. ‘Amanda might look out and see us. Can we – I mean, it is my lunchtime . . .’
‘Of course. Where would you like to go?’ Slider said.
‘There’s a place along there – Eddie’s – they do sandwiches and things,’ she said.
Eddie’s proved to be a wholly unreconstructed sandwich bar, with a few chrome-and-formica tables in the back of the sort that come screwed to the floor and all-in-one with their chairs. But the coffee smelled good, and the sandwiches were made to order from basic ingredients of the old-fashioned sort: ham, cheese, corned beef, liver sausage, lettuce, tomato, cucumber etc. And the coleslaw was made of cabbage.
‘This is not the place I was talking about,’ Atherton whispered as they went in.
‘Oddly enough, I guessed that,’ Slider murmured back.
The young woman, whose name was Angela Fraser, only picked listlessly at her food, and seemed likely at any moment to start leaking at the eyes again. Slider addressed his sandwich – he’d gone for the liver sausage, mostly to annoy Atherton, who thought it was the Devil’s Truncheon – and got her started.
‘So you knew David Rogers?’ he offered.
She nodded. ‘We’d been going out for a while.’
‘Going out as in . . .?’
She cast her eyes down, and colour came into her cheeks for the first time. ‘We were lovers,’ she managed at last. It was a curiously modest phraseology, for a female who looked to be in her early thirties. ‘We saw each other every week, on a Monday or Tuesday, and sometimes Saturdays. Unless there was some work reason why he couldn’t. Which there often was,’ she admitted, sighing.
‘What was his work?’ Slider slipped in.
She looked surprised. ‘He was a doctor,’ she said in an explaining-the-bleedin’-obvious tone. ‘A consultant,’ she bettered it.
‘At a hospital?’
‘I suppose so. He never talked about his work,’ she said. ‘He told me he was a consultant, that was all. Well, I sort of knew that anyway, because Amanda had said so. But he never said anything else about it.’
‘So you don’t know what field he was in?’ Atherton asked. She shook her head. ‘Or what hospital?’
‘No. I told you, we didn’t discuss it. We had other things to talk about.’ She smiled faintly. ‘He was great company. And he was interested in things I was interested in, too. I mean, we talked about films and clothes and decorating and food and everything. Not just football and cars, like most of the men I’ve dated. He’d always notice my hair and make-up and things. He didn’t think it was weak to know about stuff like that.’
‘He was a metrosexual,’ Atherton suggested.
She nodded, her eyes filling. ‘He was great. He bought me a Dolce and Gabbana handbag. I can’t tell you what it cost.’
‘It’s nice when a man is generous,’ Slider said warmly. ‘I suppose he was well off?’
‘I suppose he must have been.’ She looked dreamy, remembering. ‘It was always the best, wherever we went – best seats, best restaurants, taxis everywhere, champagne. He always had loads of cash on him. He paid for everything cash – even the handbag.’ Her expression sharpened suddenly. ‘You’re not thinking I went out with him for his money?’
‘Of course not,’ Slider said soothingly.
‘Because it wasn’t that at all,’ she informed him sternly. ‘He was a lovely man, sensitive and kind. He was a great listener. He always wanted to know what was on my mind, not just rushing me into bed like other men. That’s what I loved him for.’
It was a good ploy, Atherton thought. If you can listen to a woman with an appearance of interest, no matter what bollocks she’s talking, for long enough, she’s yours. The old Dirty Doctor had doubtless developed his skills over a long period.
‘So how long had you been going out?’ he asked.
‘Fourteen months,’ she said, with a hint of pride. ‘We’d started talking about taking our relationship to the next level.’
‘I thought you were already lovers,’ Atherton queried.
She frowned. ‘I don’t mean that. I mean moving in together. I’ve got this flat in South Acton, and he had this house in Shepherd’s Bush. I never saw it – we always used my place. He said he’d never liked his house and only bought it because he had to have somewhere to lay his head, and it was a good investment. But he kept saying he wanted to see more of me, though with his work commitments he couldn’t manage more than twice a week, sometimes not even that, so I said maybe we should look at both selling and getting a place together, and that’s where we were at when – when . . .’ Definite filling of the eyes. Slider pulled a couple of paper napkins out of the dispenser on the table and pressed them into her hands. ‘I can’t believe he’s gone,’ she cried into her hands. ‘I’ll never see him again. And we were – we were – so in love!’
Slider exchanged a glance with Atherton while she was busy and read his cynical amusement. No doubt this poor deluded female had been due for the big drop, having brought up with Rogers the unmentionable subject of commitment, but the pain was no less real for her. Twice a week – at her flat – for Angela; twice a week – after stripping, and at his place – for
Cat. How many others? How easy women made it these days, when sex was simply expected at the end of a date – particularly when they had hit the thirty barrier and were afraid of being left mateless. Hard-to-get meant you had to sit through dinner. But there was nothing wrong with Angela Fraser: she was pretty, personable, articulate. She must often ask herself, why wasn’t she married? A handsome, generous doctor willing to pretend to be interested in her must have seemed like a Godsend. No wonder she thought she was in love with him – and told herself he was, with her.
She emerged from her muffling, accepted another couple of napkins, blew her nose, and said abruptly, ‘When will the funeral be? I want to go.’
‘I don’t know,’ Slider said. ‘We can’t release the body while the investigation is going on.’ It wasn’t strictly true, but at the moment they hadn’t anyone to release it to; and, anyway, who knew whether Miss Fraser would end up being invited? He understood it would be important to her, seeing herself effectively as the widow, but the reality might be very different and he didn’t want to get into that.
Fortunately she was bracing herself up. ‘I’m sorry about crying,’ she said. ‘I must look a sight.’
‘Not at all,’ Slider said gallantly. ‘Just a little pink.’
‘I’ve been crying a lot at home,’ she confessed. ‘I have to try to hide it at work. Amanda would be furious if she knew I’d been seeing David. But I want to help you. Whoever did this terrible thing, they must be caught and made to suffer. Do you have any idea who it was?’
‘I was hoping you might be able to give us some sort of insight into that,’ Slider said earnestly. ‘You obviously knew him very well. Did he have any enemies?’
‘What, apart from Amanda?’ Angela said with a scornful look. ‘She hated him.’
‘Why was that?’
‘Because of the divorce,’ she said dismissively. ‘She just didn’t understand him, that’s what. He wouldn’t have looked elsewhere if she’d been more sympathetic. I just can’t imagine them married – she was so wrong for him. He was so gentle and sensitive. She’s hard, and all she cares about is business.’
‘I thought she cared about her clients,’ Slider said. ‘I mean, she’s doing very worthwhile work with the agency, isn’t she?’
‘Oh, that’s what she’d tell you,’ Angela snorted. ‘She loves everyone to think she’s this saintly Mother Theresa sort of figure, but all she does it for is the applause. She’s as hard as nails really, and the way she talks to them sometimes – telling them to stop feeling sorry for themselves, and that they can do more than they think, and they should get out and get a job and stop making a thing about their disabilities. Well, if people knew, she wouldn’t get invited to all these conferences, and dinners, and opening facilities and everything. Anyway, it’s me and Nora do all the work, really. She’s always out “networking”, as she calls it.’
‘Do you know Robin Frith?’ Slider asked, before she exploded with wrath.
‘What, her fancy man? Yes, and how come it was all right for her to shack up with him, but not all right for poor David to find comfort in another woman’s arms after the hell she put him through?’
‘So you’ve met him – Robin Frith?’ Atherton tried to get her back on track.
‘Not met, exactly. I’ve seen him once or twice. He looks a bit of a hunk, actually – I can’t think how she caught him. But I don’t really know him. I think he’s got his own business,’ she concluded vaguely, ‘but I don’t know what it is. Amanda doesn’t talk about him. Well, she doesn’t really talk about personal stuff much. She doesn’t encourage what she calls gossip in the office.’
‘Why do you think she would have minded you going out with David?’ Atherton asked.
‘Oh, because the first time I met him, he’d come into the office to see Amanda about something and she had a client with her, and he sat by my desk and started chatting to me, and we were getting on really well when she finished and came out and – well, you should have seen the look. She practically dragged him into her room, and I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but you could tell from the tone she was tearing him off a strip. And when he came out he looked furious, but he sort of swallowed it down and he winked at me as he left. Then she called me in and bollocked me for talking to him, and said that I was not to use the workplace as a dating agency and she didn’t pay me to flirt with men on her time and that if I wanted to make myself sexually available to aging Lotharios I should go and stand on a street corner in Soho, and she’d be happy to release me without notice if that was the summit of my ambition.’ She looked from Atherton to Slider and back. ‘She really said that.’
You had to admire her vocabulary, Slider thought. And if David had ‘dropped in’ at the office, it proved there was more contact between them than Amanda admitted. ‘So she didn’t want you to get to know David,’ he mused. ‘I wonder why.’
‘Jealousy,’ Angela said promptly. ‘Didn’t want anyone else to give him the happiness she couldn’t. But she couldn’t keep us apart. When I went out at lunchtime a bit later to get a sandwich he was waiting for me in his car. Took me to Strand-on-the-Green for lunch, and it took off from there. We agreed never to let Amanda know, because he said it would make her furious and I was afraid she’d sack me if she knew. Because I could make him happy, and she’d failed. We’ve been together ever since. If only he hadn’t been so busy, we could have seen more of each other. We could have been married by now.’
Atherton couldn’t bear another helping of pink blancmange. ‘What about David’s friends?’ he asked. ‘Did you meet any of them?’
‘No, not really,’ she said. ‘We were too wrapped up in each other ever to want anyone else. Our dates were too precious to water them down with other people.’
‘So you don’t know if he had any enemies? Any difficulties at work? Was anyone threatening him? Did he have money worries?’
‘No, nothing like that. I mean, he never talked about work, but he’d have said if he was in trouble. I mean, we told each other everything. And he had plenty of money. I’ve told you that.’ Suddenly she frowned. ‘Except – I’ve just remembered. He was a bit preoccupied lately.’
‘Preoccupied?’ Slider queried.
‘A bit absent, sort of. Thinking about stuff. I’d suddenly realize he wasn’t listening properly, and he’d sort of “come to” and apologize.’
‘You didn’t ask him what he was thinking about?’
‘Well, yes, but he’d just say, “Oh, nothing, sorry,” and change the subject.’
‘How long had this “thinking” been going on?’
‘About two or three weeks, I suppose. Maybe longer.’
‘Can you pinpoint anything that might have started it?’
‘Not really,’ she said slowly, working back in her mind. ‘Except – well, he used to go to this place in Suffolk.’
‘What place?’
‘He didn’t say. You see, if we went out on a Tuesday, we’d go back to my place, but he hardly ever stayed the night because he said he had to get up really early, like crack of dawn, on Wednesdays to go to Suffolk. I just thought it was another hospital he worked at. Anyway, this Tuesday night – Tuesday before last – when he got out of bed, he came back to kiss me and said he wished he didn’t have to go. I said, well don’t, then, and he said he wished he never had to do that damned journey again, and for a minute he looked really—’ She sought the right word. ‘Really bleak. I thought he just meant that he wished we were living together, but I’m thinking now maybe he was talking about this Suffolk job. Because when he left he said he wasn’t sure about next week because things might be changing in his life. He said, “There’s a big decision to be made, and it could change everything.” Well, I thought he was talking about him and me. But maybe he meant this job. Anyway, the next week we met the same as usual, but it was from then, now I think about it, that he was in this funny mood.’ She looked at them anxiously. ‘He was definitely worrying about something. Do you t
hink he knew what was going to happen? Was someone threatening him?’ Her eyes filled again. ‘I can’t bear to think he had that hanging over him, and didn’t tell me. He was too much of a gentleman to put something like that on me. Always wanted to protect me. But I could have taken it. I might have helped him.’
Slider handed over more napkins and said, ‘Are you sure he never said anything about where he went in Suffolk? Or why he went? The name of the hospital. Did he mention a town? Or tell you about his journey? You know – “there were roadworks on the A45”, or “the traffic was terrible through Saffron Walden”. Anything like that?’
‘No. He didn’t talk about driving or traffic or dull stuff like that.’
Definitely a man in a million, Slider thought. Where two or three men are gathered together, there shall routes be discussed. How could any red-blooded male drive regularly to Suffolk and never so much as mention the Army and Navy roundabout, necessity of avoiding, the Thetford bypass, difference made by, or the little-known short cut that shaved ten minutes off the Royston to Bury leg?
He changed tack. ‘You said you met him at the office. Did he often call in?’
‘No, I think I’ve only seen him there three or four times since we opened. I suppose she scared him off. But he rang her up sometimes. Nora answered the phone and put the calls through to Amanda, and I’d hear her say, “It’s David Rogers for you.”’
‘How often?’
‘Oh, not often. It’d be once a month or less – except this last few weeks. Then it was a couple of times a week.’
‘You didn’t ever hear anything that was said?’ Slider asked without hope.
She shook her head. ‘They weren’t long calls, and you could tell they made her mad, because she’d slam the phone down, and once I went in with some typing straight after and she had a face like thunder for a second before she hid it. I thought maybe he was trying to soften her up for him and me moving in together. But maybe—’ She looked at them with pitiful and failing hope. ‘I suppose it probably wasn’t that? I suppose it was this trouble he was in?’ Slider didn’t answer. ‘But why would he talk to her about it and not me about it? I thought he loved me.’
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