‘To give back the number plates?’ Mackay hazarded. ‘Maybe he only rented ’em.’
‘Better for Embry if he didn’t give ’em back,’ Hollis said. ‘Then he could claim they were stolen.’
‘But he didn’t report ’em stolen,’ McLaren said. ‘Didn’t want to draw attention to the number.’
‘I don’t understand about the number plates anyway,’ Connolly complained. ‘Why bother with real ones? I mean, why not just make up a number?’
It was Norma who explained. ‘Because you might pick a number the traffic division is looking out for. The patrol cars have on-board ANPR. The last thing you want coming away from a murder is to have the traffic cops on your tail because the number’s in their computer for an uninsured driver or unpaid parking tickets. With a genuine scrapped car you can be sure nobody’s looking for it.’
‘And it’s not that easy to get number plates made, anyway,’ Hollis added. ‘The suppliers and manufacturers are heavily regulated. Any hint o’ wrongdoing and they’d be in a shipload of trouble.’
‘I’m thinking, guv,’ McLaren began, and spoke on resolutely through the woo-hoos. ‘Maybe he was taking the shooter back. We know that was rented. The plates he could dump any time, but he’d need to get rid of the shooter right off.’
‘You’re thinking the armourer is in Stanmore?’ Slider asked.
‘I’m thinking Embry is the armourer. He looks well fit for it.’
‘Something to take on board,’ Slider said. ‘Well, now, someone will have to check Frith’s alibi, such as it is, which means getting hold of this Sue person. Swilley, I’d like you to do that. I trust your instincts. Get on to it as quickly as possible, before he has time to feed her any lines.’
‘Right, boss.’
‘How did you get on with Amanda Sturgess?’ Hollis asked.
‘Was that today? God, it seems like a week ago,’ Slider said. ‘She’s still holding out, admits talking to Rogers but only recently and says it was general chit-chat. But then one of her staff, Angela Fraser, followed us out and volunteered that she was another Rogers girl.’
‘That was the witness lunch,’ Atherton put in.
Slider went over what Angela Fraser had said. ‘It tends to confirm what we already suspected, that there must be other women out there who knew Rogers – or had been known by him. But with the two we know about, at least – Fraser and Aude – he’s been playing it very cagey. Neither of them knows where he worked or what he did, beyond his being “a doctor”. Aude said he worked at a hospital in Stansted, which we know wasn’t true. And Fraser said he went to Suffolk once a week.’
‘Suffolk?’ Hollis queried.
‘That’s a new one,’ said Mackay. ‘What did he go there for?’
‘Somebody has to,’ said Norma, screwing up her face. She hated ‘the country’ with a townie’s pure fervour.
‘We did put it to Frith,’ Slider said, ‘and he suggested it may be where Rogers kept his boat. Apparently he’s recently taken up sport fishing as a hobby.’
‘Huh. All right for some,’ said McLaren. ‘Wish I had time for a hobby.’
There was a brief silence as everyone stared at the famously indolent McLaren. Slider, baffled, said, ‘You have enough time to make your own coal.’
McLaren looked wounded. ‘Hardly sit down, time I’ve finished.’
Slider left it. ‘Now, two things seem to be emerging from this morning’s work. One is that Amanda Sturgess had a great deal more contact with Rogers than she’s admitted to. And her relationship with Frith is a complicated one. He’s financially in hock to her, and resents it, and also spits venom when Rogers is mentioned.’
‘Which is good for us,’ Swilley said, ‘if we’re thinking Frith might be the murderer.’
Slider nodded. ‘Also, whatever it was that Rogers did for a living, he kept it very secret.’
‘That’s three things,’ Atherton objected.
‘Glad you’re still awake. With regard to the third thing,’ Slider went on, ‘we don’t seem to be able to get a handle on it, and I have a feeling that it would help if we knew more about this trouble he got into. I get the sense that things changed then – certainly personally, but surely professionally as well. Possibly if we knew what happened we could get closer to what he’s been doing lately. I want the details. The real, inside story. It’s another of the things Amanda won’t talk about, and anything she won’t talk about naturally interests me. But it’s going to take some research.’
Emily spoke up. ‘Oh please, let me!’
Slider had forgotten she was there. He looked doubtful. ‘It’s police work.’
‘Well, it isn’t really, is it? Not the beginning part, anyway. Searching the archives, finding out who was there at the time, tracing them, getting them to talk about it – that’s investigative journalism. It’s the sort of thing I do all the time. And I’m good at it.’
‘She is,’ Atherton agreed. ‘But what about your Irish story?’
‘Done. Wrote it up last night, finished it on the journey this morning, filed it before I came here,’ Emily said triumphantly. ‘I have to do a piece for the Sundays, but I can fit that in easily – it’s mostly rehashing. Please let me.’
‘But what will you get out of it?’ Slider wondered. ‘I can’t pay you.’
‘Money isn’t everything. I’m interested. I want to know what happened as well. And when it’s all over – who knows, it could be a story, or grounds for an article. Nothing is ever wasted,’ she concluded.
It was one of Slider’s own maxims, the reason he listened so patiently to Everyman’s rambles. ‘You’d have made a good detective,’ he said.
When the others returned to their desks he called McLaren back. ‘Not you.’
McLaren looked helpful. ‘Want me to get you a cuppa from the canteen?’
‘No,’ said Slider. ‘Well, yes, actually, but that’s not why I called you. Tell me about this morning – the wrecking yard.’
‘Oh, yeah. Embry. He’s tasty. When we got back I ran him through records and he’s got a bit of form all right. Nothing for the last ten years, but that don’t necessarily mean he’s straight, only that he’s careful.’
‘What sort of form?’
‘Started with TDAs, some fights, bit of stealing – mostly car parts, he was car mad – when he was in his twenties. Then he settled down until he got done for ringing. It was a big operation spread out all over North London. Reckon he was the unlucky one – he got nicked as part of a sting, and put his hands up when a lot of others got away. Took the rap for them. Did fourteen months. Since then, nothing. But he might’ve earned the gratitude of a lot of big players for taking the fall. And he could’ve made some useful contacts inside. Dunno what he’s up to now. The wrecking yard looks legit, but if he’s Honest John, guv, I’m Madonna’s left tit.’
‘Leaving celebrity mammaries out of it for the moment, what did you find out about the number plate?’
‘He wasn’t best pleased it’d come back to him. He didn’t want to show us the CCTV tapes, but we had him cold. Applied a bit of muscle—’
‘As in?’
‘Just threats,’ McLaren reassured him. ‘You wouldn’t want to try beating him up with only the two of you. Got a face like a sack a spanners and a body to match. Anyway, we brought the tapes back. We got the bloke buying the plates. Embry said he didn’t know him, but I reckon he did. So Fathom’s looking further back, to see if he was in there before, but the tapes only go back six weeks. If the job was a long time in the planning . . .’ He shrugged.
‘But you say you got the bloke?’
‘Well, sort of. It’s gotta be him, right build and dark hair. But he knows the camera’s there. Keeps his head down, keeps kind of rubbing his nose and scratching his eye, sort o’ thing, so you can’t see his face.’
‘So you’ve come back with nothing?’ Slider said impatiently.
‘No, guv. There’s something. I’ll show you.’
‘That’d be nice,’ said Slider patiently. He followed McLaren to the tape room, where Fathom, looking too big for the furniture, was working his way through the back videos.
‘Got the one with chummy’s face, Jezza?’ McLaren asked.
Fathom swapped cassettes and started fast-forwarding. McLaren, watching, excavated sandwich remains from the recesses of his mouth. Then he sucked pickle off his finger and pointed. ‘There. Play it from there, Jez. Watch, guv. Just a minute – bit more – now!’
Fathom froze the frame. As the frustratingly canny customer turned away from the counter, there was a single frame of his face in profile. ‘Got him!’ Fathom said with quiet triumph.
‘It’s not Frith,’ Slider said. It was a lean-faced man with thick dark hair, who could pass for Frith at a glance at a distance, but there was no doubt it wasn’t him. He looked older too – fifties, maybe – and harder. ‘You might have mentioned this at the meeting.’
‘Well, guv, it don’t mean Frith’s out of it,’ said McLaren. ‘All right, he didn’t buy the plates off Embry, but he could’ve bought ’em off this geezer. More likely he did, really,’ he argued, ‘because Frith’s got no record, so he probably wouldn’t know where to go to get stuff. Someone puts him on to this bloke –’ he stabbed at the frozen frame – ‘who gets him whatever he needs. Maybe he gets him the shooter as well. He’s a fixer.’
‘It’s a theory,’ said Slider. ‘But then why would Frith go to Stanmore?’
‘Same reason,’ McLaren said promptly. He had evidently been thinking about it. ‘He’s got to take the shooter and the plates back to the fixer. We don’t know any other connection between Frith and Stanmore, so it makes sense it’s the fixer, which we know has been in Embry’s yard.’
Fathom said eagerly, ‘Maybe Embry’s still the armourer, and this bloke’s the go-between. I’d swear Embry knows him. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was supplying a lot of stuff out of that yard.’
‘If they were working together, why would Embry CCTV him?’ Slider objected.
‘To make sure he’d got something on him,’ McLaren said. ‘Insurance, in case anything comes back to him. Which it has.’
‘It’s all pure speculation,’ said Slider. ‘However, you can take a print of this still and see if the local police know him. I don’t know anyone up there so you’ll have to do it tactfully. And find out if they’re watching Embry for anything. McLaren, that’s you. Fathom, you can get on to the firearms section and see if there’s anything leading back to Embry or his yard.’
As he returned to his own office, Slider was thinking that it could just be – and it was much simpler, wasn’t it? – that it was Numberplate Chummy who did the murder, and not Frith at all. But that left them further from the solution than ever, because they had no idea who Numberplate Chummy was or what his connection with Rogers might have been. At least they knew Frith was acquainted with the doctor and hadn’t liked him.
Swilley caught up with the trolley dolly, Sue Hardwicke, at Heathrow, coming in from another long haul flight. She turned out to be endearingly middle-aged and unglamorous, except that her make-up was so thickly applied it looked as if a sharp rap on the back of her head would make the whole lot fall off in one piece, like a Greek theatre mask. As she clicked along on her swollen ankles, towing her little black suitcase, her exhausted eyes met Swilley’s blankly at first, and then as she was stopped, with faint irritation.
Swilley introduced herself and said, ‘I’d like to ask you a few questions, if you wouldn’t mind.’
As she stopped, the rest of the crew steamed past her, with a glance of sympathy but an evident desire not to be delayed themselves. Layovers were precious and too short anyway.
‘What about?’
‘It’s concerning the death of David Rogers.’
‘Who?’
‘Haven’t you seen the newspapers?’ Swilley countered.
‘Haven’t had time. I’ve been working. Was he a passenger? Why are you asking me? Did I serve him with something? You ought to speak to the airline. We just hand the food out, you know – we don’t cook it.’
‘Doctor David Rogers was murdered on Monday.’
She looked alarmed at the word, and then a sort of enlightenment crossed her face, followed by caution. ‘I don’t know Dr Rogers. I’ve never met him.’
‘But you do know who he is,’ Swilley said. ‘Does it help if I tell you that Robin Frith came in this morning to give a voluntary statement? We know about your relationship with him.’
Her rigid alertness slumped. ‘Oh good God,’ she muttered. ‘Now what?’ She eyed Swilley cautiously. ‘Look, I suppose we’d better talk, but can we keep this discreet? I’ve got a lot to lose. I’ll take you to the staff lounge, but don’t tell anyone you’re police, all right?’
She walked rapidly and Swilley had to hurry to keep up with her. There were keypad doors, stairs and corridors, and finally a rather bleak, windowless lounge, smelling faintly of old coffee, with the sort of mean furniture that was designed to meet a budget rather than any human need. Swilley felt sorry for Mrs Hardwicke. She had a hard-worn housewifely look about her, and no sense that she was getting much pleasure out of life.
When they were settled at a table in a quiet corner, and Sue Hardwicke had a paper cup of coffee in front of her, she opened the conversation with, ‘Look, I know who you mean, David Rogers. Amanda’s ex. The woman Robin lives with. But I really didn’t know him. You say he’s been murdered?’
‘Yes, early on Monday morning.’
She thought for a second. ‘I was flying back from Dubai. You can check that if you want. Why would you think I had anything to do with it?’
‘I don’t,’ Swilley said. ‘But I believe you saw Robin Frith that morning. I’d like you to confirm the times.’
She looked puzzled. ‘He was waiting for me at home when I got in. My husband – well, he was away. He works away a lot, same as I do.’ She seemed embarrassed. ‘Look, I know it’s not exactly . . . I mean, having an affair – it looks bad. But we both have complicated lives. Robin and me. You’d have to know the circumstances. Amanda and Terry, they don’t know. Though they’re not exactly snow-white lambs themselves, you know.’
Swilley was amused and, despite herself, touched. ‘I’m not here to judge you, Mrs Hardwicke,’ she said seriously.
‘Oh, please, call me Sue. Everyone does – and I mean, absolutely everyone.’
‘I just want you to tell me what time you saw Robin Frith on Monday morning.’
‘Sorry, I’m a bit tired,’ said Sue, and rubbed the back of her neck. If she’d rubbed her face she’d have done irreparable damage. ‘I can’t tell you the exact time, because I didn’t look, but I suppose it would have been half past seven going on eight when I got home. Robin was there already. We spent a couple of hours together and then he left after lunch and I went to sleep.’
‘So you can’t vouch for him for any time before eight that morning?’
She stared a moment, and then slowly began to smile. ‘I’m sorry. I’ve been a bit slow. Must be jet-lag. You’re asking me for an alibi for him? You can’t be serious.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because Robin just isn’t capable of murder.’
‘Anyone’s capable of murder in the right circumstances.’
Sue shrugged. ‘Well, possibly, I don’t know about that, but if you’re suggesting that Robin could kill David Rogers – and why he’d want to do that I can’t imagine – and then come to my house and wait for me, cook me breakfast and run my bath and talk to me as if nothing had happened – well, you’re just so far out it isn’t funny. He’s simply not that ruthless. You don’t know him. He’s no tough guy. I suppose he might get into a row with someone and kill them by accident – hit them so they fell down and banged their head or something like that – but cold-bloodedly, it just couldn’t happen.’
‘You say he’s not tough. But you have to be tough to compete at Badminton, don’t you? You have to be
ruthless to win there.’ Swilley had this from Slider. She didn’t know one end of a horse from the other, except that one end had teeth and the other made hors d’oeuvres – horse eggs, in English. ‘He runs a successful business. He employs people. He coaches Olympics and trains horses. All those things suggest a very capable man.’
‘He is capable around horses,’ Sue confirmed. ‘And he knows his business. And you’re right, you have to be tough and brave to event at the top level. It’s always puzzled me,’ she said, smiling, ‘how a man so brave on horseback can be such a hopeless wimp around people. Look at the way Amanda pushes him around. He’ll never so much as say boo to her. She throws him into a tizzy. He spends a lot of our time together complaining about her and how awful his life is and all the things she’s done in the past – and, yes, he’s talked about David, too. I’m the one he tells everything to. I’m his agony aunt. I promise you, he couldn’t have murdered Roger and pretended around me that nothing had happened. He’d have had to tell me. He’d have been in a blue funk about it, and I’d have asked him “what’s wrong”, and he’d have said “nothing” the first three times, then it would all have come out.’
Never had anyone been so transparently sincere about what they were saying. However, Swilley thought, that didn’t mean she was right in her assessment. If Robin was such a pushover and so funky about Amanda, might he not have just obeyed her if she’d said she wanted David murdered? What if his fear of Amanda was worse than his fear of the law?
‘You’ve known Robin a long time?’ she said.
‘About six years now. I met him when he was flying out with the team to the Athens Olympics. We got chatting on the plane. I had a two-day layover, and – well, the rest is history.’
‘You’ve been lovers ever since?’
She pinked a little, but nodded. ‘It isn’t easy. My schedule makes it hard for any relationship. And we’ve both – got partners.’
‘That could be changed.’
She looked suddenly very tired. ‘I’d leave Terry. I would, if I had something to go to. He’s – he’s not an easy man. He has a temper. And it’s a long time since we were – fond of each other. If Robin would commit himself I’d leave. But I can’t go with nothing to go to. Terry wouldn’t take it well, and I’d need support. I’d have to be going to someone.’
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