‘The first and second floor rooms I deal with,’ she said with obvious reluctance. ‘I advertise them, or sometimes I know someone who’s wanting a room. It’s down to me who I take in.’
‘But not the top floor rooms. Ronnie’s room and the one the Chinese boy had.’ She shook her head. ‘What happens about those?’
‘People are sent.’
‘Who sends them?’
‘The owner.’
‘And who is that?’
She opened her mouth and shut it again. She seemed to want to tell him, but not to be able to get it out past some powerful taboo.
‘I’ll help you out, shall I?’ Slider said kindly. ‘Mandy said you told her the owner was very rich, and had a big house in Chorleywood. A big, Hollywood-style house with a swimming pool, is it?’
She found her voice. ‘I’ve never been there.’
‘No, well you wouldn’t have, would you? No wonder Ronnie was so reliable and grateful – he owed him everything, didn’t he – his job and his home? Poor Ronnie. He must have felt really bad about letting him down. So bad, he preferred to kill himself.’
‘That’s right,’ she said.
‘Funny thing, though,’ Slider said conversationally, ‘that this great man wants the fact that he owns this house kept secret. You’d think with all the good he does – providing clean accommodation at a reasonable rent – that he wouldn’t be so coy about it. You’d think he wouldn’t mind people knowing.’
‘You won’t tell him I told you?’ she said anxiously.
‘You haven’t told me anything,’ Slider pointed out. ‘Not even his name.’
That’s right, I haven’t,’ she realised with relief.
‘And what’s more, I’m not going to ask you,’ he said. ‘Aren’t I a nice copper? And in return, you aren’t going to tell him I was asking, are you?’
‘I know when to keep me mouth shut,’ she said tersely.
‘Yes, you do, don’t you?’ said Slider.
CHAPTER 13
A Fistful of Dolours
THE TURNING OFF THE MAIN road dropped steeply through a wood for a couple of hundred yards, between high banks overhung with trees so that it was like driving in a green tunnel. Then suddenly the horizon opened out to a view over the Chess Valley, the road did a right-angled bend, and there was the entrance to Colin Cate’s house, set back a little off the road – a pair of massive, wrought-iron, electronically operated gates, backed with heavy duty wire mesh to prevent an anorexic burglar slipping between the bars. Beyond the gates the drive curved between high banks of rhododendrons. You couldn’t see the house.
Slider pulled up on the gravel in front of the gate, and saw the security camera mounted on the top of the gatepost swing round to goggle at him. He climbed out of the car and breathed in the sweet country air of May, heard a wood pigeon burbling in a tree close by, blackbirds, sparrows and chaffinches making a pleasant background noise further off, and somewhere out of sight within the grounds several dogs barking excitedly.
He walked up to the gates. They surprised him a little, for despite what Barrington and Fergus had said, he had not quite grasped how rich and powerful a man he was dealing with. Ordinary mortals, even pleasantly well-off mortals, did not protect their property to this extent. The gates were impregnable to anything much less than an APC with a determined driver, and there was an enamel plate screwed on high up showing a silhouette of a Dobermann Pinscher and the words ‘DANGER! Grounds protected by loose dogs’. The idea of loose dogs made him wrinkle his nose: he made a mental note to watch where he was stepping.
The camera was still poking its long nose at him, and he saw set into the gatepost an intercom grille and buzzer. He pressed the button, and after a moment the grille hissed and spat and said, ‘Yes? What do you want?’
‘I’d like to see Colin Cate, please,’ Slider said, feeling, as he always did when speaking to a wall, faintly hilarious. ‘My name is Slider – Detective Inspector Slider. It’s about—’
‘Yes, all right,’ the grill squawked. ‘Drive in.’
Slider got back in the car and started the engine as the gate began slowly to open. He drove through, and saw in his rear-view that it began to close immediately behind him. He followed the drive past the rhododendron walls and it led round the curve to the car park, a flat, tarmac platform set into the hillside, which surrounded it on two sides and was terraced with low walls and shrubs and a zigzag of steps leading up. He noted that there were a bright red BMW and a maroon Ford Sierra already parked there, side by side and nose to the wall. With a vague instinct of self preservation he swung round and parked with his tail to the terrace wall and his nose facing outwards for a quick getaway.
He got out. Facing him was the open side of the platform, a view past the trees over the valley into the blue distance. It was quiet, and the sun was straight and hot, making him think of high Alpine meadows. Turning, he looked up at the terraced hillside and saw, some fifty feet further up, just a glimpse of the house, a red roof and a glint of windows amongst the greenery. Should he go up? He thought of the loose dogs and hesitated, and then saw that someone had appeared at the top of the steps and was coming down to meet him. It was Colin Cate, dressed in slacks and a dark blue open-necked shirt. Wound round his hand he had the lead-chain of a very fit-looking, larger-than-average Dobermann.
Slider stood still until Cate arrived in front of him. Cate’s eyes were screwed up against the sun, but he was smiling a pleasant if slightly quizzical smile. The dog leaned against its collar and panted, its frilled pink tongue dripping between the white, white teeth, its yellow cat’s eyes gleaming as it strained to reach him. It was smiling, too, an unpleasant if slightly anticipatory smile.
‘Hullo! Bill, isn’t it? What brings you here?’ Cate said. ‘New developments?’
‘I’d just like a few words, if that’s all right,’ Slider said neutrally.
‘Must be important to bring you out here on a Sunday.’
‘Oh, I don’t live very far away,’ Slider said. ‘I hope I’m not disturbing your family lunch?’
‘As a matter of fact, I’m on my own.’ He turned towards the steps, inviting Slider to follow. ‘Come and have a drink by the pool. I was doing some paperwork. The wife’s gone to visit her mother for a week or so.’ They climbed. ‘Are you married?’
‘Yes.’
‘Kids?’
‘Two. A boy and a girl.’
‘Just right. I’ve got too bloody many. Two boys by my first wife – live with their mother – and three by my present encumbrance. Two boys and a girl. Away at school – cost me a fortune. Makes you wonder sometimes why you do it, doesn’t it?’
It was all as genial and pleasant and open as could be. Slider followed him up the steps, trying not to let the tension of his mind seep into his body, mindful of how sensitive guard dogs are. The house, when they came in sight of it, was modern, perhaps ten or fifteen years old, low and sprawling, set on several levels to take advantage of the hillside, and with huge windows to take advantage of the view. At the front corner of it was a curious structure like a square tower, and through its large windows Slider could see a man sitting and staring out at them.
‘You said you were on your own, sir?’ Slider said cautiously. Cate looked to see what he was looking at, and smiled.
‘Except for the security guard. Someone has to watch all those damned cameras and answer the door bell.’
Cate did not take him into the house, but down a path to the side, through a shrubbery. The sound of barking came nearer, and the shrubbery broke to reveal a large, wire-mesh compound in which half a dozen Dobermanns were running back and forth in a bored way. They broke into a fusillade of barks at the sight of the men, and one or two put their great paws up against the mesh to give them the full benefit of their physique.
‘Lovely animals, aren’t they?’ Cate said. ‘I breed ’em – hobby of mine. Do you like dogs?’
‘Yes,’ Slider said. ‘If they’re well-
trained, working dogs. I don’t like yappers or lap-dogs.’
‘A dog is only as good as the man who trains him,’ Cate said.
‘I suppose you could say the same of men,’ Slider offered.
At the back of the compound was a long, low shed, presumably the kennels, and a separate small building, brick-built, with a chimney from which smoke was rising. As they passed down-wind of it, a fearful smell met them which had Slider and the Dobermann sniffing, though probably for different reasons.
Cate looked at Slider sidelong with an amused smile. ‘Whiffs a bit, doesn’t it? It’s the dog’s grub – a mixture of meat, offal and cereal. We boil it up ourselves in a huge copper. It’s called pudding.’
‘Oh yes,’ Slider said. ‘Like with foxhounds.’
‘That’s right. Do you hunt?’
‘No,’ said Slider. I will make you hunters of men, he thought. ‘But I was brought up on a farm. We used to send our dead cattle to the local hunt kennels.’
‘Well, it’s nice to know you can go on being useful even after you’re dead, isn’t it?’
They left the smells and the dogs behind, turned another corner, and came out by a large, kidney-shaped, sapphire blue swimming pool, sparkling in the sun, and equipped with diving board, changing-rooms, sun-loungers, and wrought-iron tables and chairs.
‘Take a pew,’ Cate said, waving towards a table. Slider sat, and Cate led the dog to the other chair, made it sit, and then dropped the lead. ‘Stay,’ he said. The dog looked at him, and then turned its head to fix Slider with an unwavering stare. ‘What do you want to drink? Fancy a Pimms? I’ve got a jug all ready made up.’
‘Yes, thank you, that’ll be fine,’ Slider said. He’d never seen the point of Pimms, but he’d take whatever was quickest. He didn’t really want this interview to be drawn out longer than necessary.
One of the changing-rooms must have been a bar, for Cate emerged from it in short order with a jug, two glasses and an ice-bucket on a tray. ‘You don’t want all that fruit business, I hope?’ he said cheerfully. He put down the tray and poured out two glasses, added ice, and handed one to Slider. ‘That’s just nonsense to keep the women quiet. Now when I mix a Pimms, it’s a man’s drink. Cheers!’
‘Cheers,’ said Slider, and drank. The Pimms turned out to be fire-water, and bit him on its way down. ‘Very nice,’ he said.
‘Like it?’ Cate sat opposite him. ‘The secret is equal parts of Pimms and gin, and a splash of bitters before you add the lemonade. And not too bloodymuch lemonade, either.’ He drank, put down his glass, and said, ‘Right, now what did you want to see me about?’
‘The house that Ronnie Slaughter lived in – I understand it belongs to you,’ Slider said, not making it a question.
‘Who told you that?’ Cate asked pleasantly.
‘Ronnie did,’ said Slider, putting the blame where it could do no harm.
‘Did he? Did he?’ Cate sat thoughtfully. ‘Yes, poor Ronnie!’
‘It wasn’t meant to be a secret, was it?’
‘Of course not. How could it be?’ Cate said. He sipped his drink and put it down again, resting his hand beside it. Slider glanced at the skull ring and away again. ‘I own quite a lot of property one way and another. My father said to me when I was a boy, Colin, he said, if you ever get money, buy property. You can’t go wrong with it.’ He smiled with pleasant self-mockery. ‘I never forget I wasn’t born with a silver spoon in my mouth, you see. And on the whole, my father was right. On the whole.’
‘It must have been useful to be able to offer Slaughter a room as well as a job,’ Slider said.
‘What do you mean by that?’
‘Well, it can be hard to find somewhere to live in London. Firms often lose promising employees because they can’t find a flat they can afford.’
Cate looked him over carefully. ‘If you’ve got something to ask me, Inspector, ask it. I don’t like innuendo.’
‘I wasn’t implying anything, sir,’ Slider said. ‘You must be sorry to have lost Ronnie. You said yourself he was a good manager.’
‘He was,’ Cate said shortly. ‘But I don’t think you came here to talk about Ronnie’s accommodation problems. What is it you want to know?’
‘About the Chinese men who stayed in the room next to Ronnie’s.’
‘What about them?’
‘It just seems an odd coincidence that there should have been three of them, one after the other, and odd coincidences start me wondering. You’ll understand that, having been a copper yourself. I suppose it’s curiosity that makes us take up the job in the first place, isn’t it?’
Cate nodded, which might or might not have been acknowledgement of the point. ‘It’s not as great a coincidence as it seems, I’m afraid. There was Peter Ling, who worked in one of my computer shops – he was Chinese to look at, but he came from North Kensington actually. The second man, Chou Xiang Xu, was attached to the Science and Technology section of the Chinese Embassy, over here looking into new computer developments. A business colleague of mine at IBM asked me to put him up. And the third one, Lee Chang, in fact was American, attached to the NATO base at Northwood, and a friend of mine put him on to me because he knew I sometimes had rooms to let. He was only there for a few weeks. Now is there anything sinister in that?’
‘Nothing at all. I didn’t think there would be,’ Slider said with perfect truth. ‘I was just puzzled by the coincidence, that’s all.’
‘Apparent coincidence,’ Cate corrected.
Slider sipped his drink. ‘It’s a lovely place you’ve got here,’ he said.
‘Yes,’ Cate assented. ‘I’m always surprised it can be so rural so near to London.’
‘My wife would love us to move out to Chorleywood,’ Slider said. ‘Ruislip is getting a bit rough these days. Have you had much trouble with break-ins here? I was very impressed with your security arrangements.’
‘If an ex-copper can’t keep himself safe, who can?’ Cate said amiably. ‘I’ve worked hard for what’s mine, and I mean to keep it. My dad had one fish and chip shop, that was all, in Westbourne Park Road. We lived above the shop, Mum, Dad and four of us kids, and everything smelled of frying fat. We used to fry in dripping in those days, of course, and you could never get the smell out of your hair. I went to the local council school, and the other kids used to make fun of me – called me the Greasy Pole. I was skinny in those days – well, there wasn’t much to eat except left-over fish and chips, and I couldn’t stomach ’em, after smelling ’em all day. I swore to myself one day I’d be rich, and never have to eat fried fish again.’
Scarlett O’Hara again, Slider thought. As God is my witness, I’ll never be hungry again.
Cate drained his glass and fixed Slider with the look of one who has reached the point of his whole narrative. ‘I started off as a potato boy – just like poor old Ronnie Slaughter. I left school when I was fifteen to work in my Dad’s shop. Now I own eight of ’em – besides the other bits and pieces. I’ve never looked back. I felt sorry for Ronnie, and I tried to do him a favour, but I suppose I should have left him to struggle on his own. You can’t help people, they have to help themselves. He let me down.’
‘Let you down?’
‘He killed that boy, Leman, didn’t he?’ Cate said. ‘Well, at least he’s paid for it. Better than wasting the taxpayer’s money bringing the case to court. I’d have thought Barrington would have closed it by now.’
‘Yes sir,’ Slider said. ‘There is just one thing I wanted to ask you. You told me that Ronnie Slaughter wrote to you in reply to your advertisement for the job of manager of Dave’s Fish Bar?’
‘Yes. What about it?’
‘I wondered if by any chance you still had that letter? It would round things off nicely if we could match his handwriting against the suicide note, just to be absolutely sure. All we have is his signature on a statement, and you know yourself, sir, that that isn’t enough to go by.’
Cate looked thoughtful. ‘No, I’m afrai
d I wouldn’t still have it.’
‘I was afraid of that,’ Slider said.
‘However,’ Cate went on, ‘I think I do have a note from Ronnie upstairs in my office somewhere. I remember seeing it the other day when I was looking for something. It’s only short, but it may be enough. I’ll go and get it, if you’d like to have a look at it.’
‘Yes, thank you, if you don’t mind,’ said Slider. Cate got up and went into the house, leaving Slider and the dog facing each other. The animal’s unwinking stare took the edge off the excitement he would otherwise have been feeling. Was he about to get his break-through after all? He almost smiled in anticipation, and the dog shuffled its bottom an inch nearer. Its muzzle was now only three inches from Slider’s left knee, and the drippings from its tongue were wetting the toecap of his shoe.
At last Cate came out, carrying a piece of paper.
‘Sorry to have been so long,’ he said. ‘I couldn’t put my hand to it at first. Here you are. Not very exciting reading.’
Slider took it and put it down on the table in front of him. It was a page which had been torn out of a small, ruled pocket note-book, written in pencil in what appeared to be the same clumsy script as the suicide note.
Mr Cate, we need 90 skinless cod, 25 kilos mozza meal, and 25 kilos rice cone for the special order. Also 100 steak pies. Thanks. Ronnie.
‘It was some stuff he wanted me to order for a big party because it was too short notice for the usual supplier,’ Cate explained.
‘I see,’ Slider said. ‘But can we be sure it was him that wrote it, though? It might have been one of his assistants writing to his dictation.’
Cate smiled expansively. ‘Ah, well as it happens, you’re in luck there. I remember that on that particular day I was going to call in at the shop on my way past in the afternoon, during the closed period, and I asked him to leave me a note of what he needed. But I arrived earlier than I expected, and he was still there, writing the note.’
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