Shallow Grave (Bill Slider Mystery)

by Harrod-Eagles, Cynthia

  Atherton fetched the pudding, and they got on to discussing the case.

  ‘I think Porson’s right to let him go,’ Slider said. ‘The old man may be a bit strange, but he knows his onions. Being held by us was probably just enough punishment to keep Andrews comfortable. Being all alone in the house – the house he built for her – may work on his guilt and bring him to the point of remorse where he has to confess.’

  ‘But he didn’t kill her at home, did he?’ Joanna said.

  ‘We didn’t find anything to show that he did,’ Slider said. ‘The trouble is, if he didn’t kill her in the privacy and comfort of his own home, where did he do it?’

  ‘In the cab of his pickup is the next best bet,’ Atherton said. ‘But it could equally well have been in the long grass or round the back of the bike sheds. We just don’t know.’

  ‘Not on a hard surface,’ Slider said, ‘or the back of her head would have been bruised or abraded. Of course, since she was found lying in the earth, the presence of earth or grass on the back of her clothes and hair wouldn’t tell us anything.’

  ‘But wherever he killed her,’ Joanna said, ‘how did he transport the body? I suppose if the handbag was in the pickup, it suggests the body was too.’

  ‘It could be. But that’s another problem: why didn’t the neighbours on that side of the house hear the pickup driving up?’

  ‘Oh, come on,’ Atherton objected. ‘Who pays any attention to the sound of traffic? Your brain edits it out.’

  ‘But the sound of crunching gravel—’

  ‘Well, he’d be nuts to drive it over the gravel,’ Atherton said impatiently. ‘He’d park it on the road.’

  ‘He’d still have to walk over the gravel – and with a body over his shoulder,’ Slider said. ‘Surely they’d hear that? It’s the point of gravel – it’s an alarm system.’

  ‘Couldn’t he have got to the terrace any other way?’ Joanna asked.

  ‘Up through the garden,’ Slider said.

  ‘But that would mean crossing someone else’s garden first,’ Atherton said. ‘There’s a footpath at the end of the row, but there’s three houses between it and the Rectory. That’s four fences to get the body over. Of course it’s possible, but would anyone?’

  ‘Where does the footpath go to?’ Joanna asked.

  Slider raised his eyebrows. ‘To the railway footbridge. But of course, good point! From there he could have got onto the railway embankment, which runs parallel with the gardens: only two fences, and cover in between. Maybe we oughtn’t to get too hung up on the pickup.’

  Atherton cocked his head. ‘Time for a general appeal for witnesses, do you think?’

  ‘We haven’t enough manpower to extend the house-to-house much further,’ Slider said, ‘and Porson’s already burbling about budget restraints. Yes, maybe it’s time to ask him to go public. But on a limited scale – local television, perhaps. We don’t want sightings from Aberdeen and Abergavenny clogging up the system.’

  ‘Why don’t you ever do the TV appeals?’ Joanna said, slipping a hand on his thigh under the table. ‘It’d be a feather in my cap having a celeb for a lover. Your handsome face all over the silver screen—’

  ‘Not in these trousers,’ Slider said firmly. ‘I’m a private man and I intend to stay private. Det sups get the big money – they can have the exposure as well.’

  ‘Mr Modesty!’

  Atherton was still musing. ‘What I can’t understand is why he retouched the makeup. It seems to me that, if Freddie’s right about that, it’s a point against its being Eddie. If he was going to bury her in concrete, it wouldn’t matter what she looked like.’

  ‘It is odd,’ Slider acknowledged. ‘Maybe the oddest thing about the whole business.’

  ‘But, to my mind, it’s only her husband who would do a thing like that,’ Joanna said. ‘Why would anybody else care what she looked like? It’s a strange, obsessive kind of thing to do. I can imagine him plotting the murder, carrying it out, and then brooding over the body – you know, like those chimps that won’t be separated from their dead babies and keep on licking and grooming them.’

  ‘I see your reasoning,’ Slider said. ‘But is he obsessive in that way?’

  ‘Don’t ask me, I’ve never met the bloke,’ Joanna said. ‘But if he says he loved her, and she was a bad hat, maybe that was enough to make him obsessive.’

  ‘How much of a bad hat we’ve still to discover,’ Slider said, and looked towards Atherton. ‘You know, I’m wondering if there wasn’t something between her and Meacher. Given the way she was with Potter, her other boss – and the availability of empty houses to do it in.’

  ‘Eddie says Meacher sometimes asked her to work at weekends, and he obviously didn’t like it,’ Atherton agreed cautiously.

  ‘Maybe that was just an excuse. I got the feeling Meacher was keeping something back from me, and he’s never come in with the list of where he was that afternoon. There’s something about that man I don’t like.’

  ‘I thought it was everything about him you didn’t like,’ Atherton said. ‘The ordinary bloke’s hatred of the man of style and taste—’

  ‘None of your sauce,’ Slider countered. ‘You forget I have it in my power to retaliate. There are jobs and jobs, and I’m the one who gives ’em out. For instance, Andrews’ pickup had an oil leak – left stains on the ground where it was parked. Now that might give us a clue as to where it was on Tuesday night.’

  Atherton rolled his eyes. ‘No! Mercy! You want me to go and investigate every oil patch in west London? I don’t have the stomach for it! I don’t have the trousers for it!’

  ‘Well, just watch your lip, then,’ Slider warned. ‘And go and get my coffee. Can’t you see I’ve finished?’

  Atherton jumped up, cowering, grabbed the plates and shuffled out, one shoulder hunched and his left leg dragging.

  Joanna replaced her hand on Slider’s thigh. ‘I love it when you’re masterful,’ she said, batting her eyelids. ‘Would you like to sleep with me tonight?’

  ‘I’ll think about it,’ he said lordly-wise, but his smirk gave him away.

  Morning streamed into Slider’s office to fidget with his hangover and remind him that nothing worthwhile was ever had without payment. They had been drinking brandy late into the night, and he was beginning to think brandy didn’t agree with him. Certainly morning had come too soon and was being far too loud about it. Still, at least the windows were decently grey again, now that the awful cleanliness of the Barrington era had worn off. Det Sup Porson had a proper respect for crud. Dirty windows saved on net curtains.

  He was talking to Atherton when Mackay came in with the long-promised cup of tea.

  ‘You took your time,’ Slider grumped.

  ‘Sorry, sir. I got sidetracked,’ he said, putting the cup down without taking his eyes from the typesheet in his hand. Slider sighed and patiently poured the slops back into the cup and found a paper hanky to wipe the cup’s bottom. ‘I left yours on your desk, Jim,’ Mackay said.

  ‘Safest place,’ Atherton said.

  ‘The thing is, guv,’ Mackay went on, ‘it’s these phone numbers. Mrs Andrews’ car phone. On the Tuesday she made two calls to a number that turns out to be David Meacher’s mobile. The first was a short one at one fifty-five – lasted only thirty-five seconds. The second was a long one – nineteen minutes. Cost her a small fortune – or would’ve,’ he corrected succinctly. ‘That was at eighteen thirty-one.’

  ‘Half past six in people-time,’ Atherton translated.

  Slider reflected. ‘Well, there’s no reason she shouldn’t phone her boss, I suppose. I wonder where she was, though, and why it couldn’t wait until she got home? Any others?’

  ‘Well, I dunno if it means anything, but about half past five she phoned a number that turns out to be the vicarage of the vicar that does the church in St Michael Square.’

  ‘The Rev. Alan Tennyson,’ Atherton said.

  ‘That’s right. Well, we kno
w she was very inty at the church, so there’s nothing funny about that, but I did wonder—’

  ‘Whether she asked for spiritual advice?’

  ‘It wasn’t a long enough call for that – four minutes. But seeing as it was the day she died, she might have said something to him that would give us a hint.’

  ‘Quite right,’ Slider said. ‘We’ll look into it. Anything else?’

  ‘She phoned the First And Last just before eleven o’clock. Ten fifty-five, to be exact, one minute fifty seconds. I wondered if she spoke to Eddie. Maybe that was when he arranged to meet her somewhere, wherever it was he killed her.’

  ‘The barman said it was after eleven that Eddie came in,’ Atherton reminded him. ‘After closing-time, which was why he refused him a drink. But I suppose he could have got the time wrong.’

  ‘Or the pub clock could be fast,’ Slider said. ‘It’s a thought, anyway. What about Meacher’s mobile?’

  ‘Nothing that strikes the eye, guv,’ Mackay said, ‘except—’ He hesitated. ‘Well, I dunno if it’s anything to do with anything, but he did make a call to the Target Motel that morning. At half past eleven.’

  ‘Half past eleven? He was still in the office at that time, wasn’t he?’

  ‘Well, that’s what I wondered. If he used his mobile instead of the office phone, maybe he didn’t want anyone to hear what he was saying. And it being a motel, naturally I thought—’

  ‘That his call had naughty purposes,’ Atherton concluded. ‘It’s shocking the effect the word “motel” has on people.’

  ‘Well, why don’t you pop round there and find out?’ Slider told Mackay. ‘No, no, don’t thank me. I like to reward virtue. Meanwhile,’ he said to Atherton, ‘I think you may pay a visit to the parish priest, and see if you can get any more information about Mrs Andrews and her little proclivities.’

  ‘Pretty large ones, from what I’ve heard,’ Atherton said, unfolding his long body from the window-sill like a hydraulic arm. ‘What about a Meacher follow-up?’

  ‘I’ll do that,’ Slider said. ‘I need the fresh air.’

  Meacher’s office was womanned by a very smart, well-preserved female in her forties who was very nearly pretty. Her hair was dyed blonde, but very nicely, and her makeup was perfect, except that she had eaten off her lipstick leaving only the outliner, which gave her rather a clownlike look. A lipstick-stained coffee cup on her desk completed the story, and the stale-laundry smell of instant coffee on the air suggested to the trained mind that she had only just finished it and hadn’t yet had time to renew the lippy. It was easy when you knew how, Slider told himself, and asked her for the boss.

  She replied, with a clipped smile and an authoritative voice, ‘I’m sorry, he’s at the other office today. Can I help you?’

  ‘You must be—’ Slider sought memory for the name. ‘Liz – I’m sorry, I don’t know your other name.’

  ‘Liz Berryman,’ she admitted, looking a query.

  ‘Detective Inspector Slider, Shepherd’s Bush CID.’

  ‘Oh! Yes,’ she said, and her face became grave. ‘About Jennifer, I suppose. That was a terrible thing. I suppose it was murder?’

  ‘We’re treating the death as suspicious,’ Slider said cautiously. The eyes behind the mascara were watchful and intelligent. ‘I suppose you didn’t know her very well?’

  ‘Oh, I knew her all right,’ she said bitterly. She looked down, and then up again as though coming to a decision. ‘I suppose you know about her and David?’

  Slider sat down in the chair on the other side of her desk with an air of settling in for the spill. ‘Funnily enough, that’s what I was going to ask him about when I came here.’

  ‘If he’d tell you. It’s supposed to be a big secret. But I’ll tell you if he won’t.’ She translated his waiting expression as an enquiry into her motives. ‘I don’t owe him any loyalty on that score. What loyalty did he ever show me, or anyone? And they were both married people. Besides, it’s everyone’s duty to help the police, isn’t it?’

  ‘I wish everyone thought so,’ Slider said. ‘So Jennifer and David Meacher were having an affair, were they?’

  ‘If that’s what you want to call it,’ she said sourly. ‘He tried to keep it a secret at the office, but she was always brushing up against him, and saying things no-one else was supposed to understand. She was always calling him, too, when it wasn’t her day on. She’d disguise her voice sometimes and pretend to be a client if it was me answered the phone, but I knew it was her, all right. I expect she did the same thing at his home. Her sort always do. I pity his poor wife.’

  ‘But Mr Meacher said that you and she were never here at the same time,’ Slider queried.

  ‘That was the basic principle, but our times overlapped, so as to make sure the office was always covered. And she did extra hours when we were busy. And, of course,’ she added harshly, ‘she liked to hang around after I arrived talking to David and looking sideways at me to see if I’d noticed.’

  ‘Why would she do that?’ Slider asked mildly.

  She glowered at him. ‘Why don’t you just come right out and ask me? I’ve got nothing to hide, though David seems to think I have. But I wasn’t the one who was married. I was perfectly entitled to do whatever I wanted, especially given—’ She stopped, biting her lips angrily.

  Slider was there at last. ‘It used to be you,’ he said. ‘He dropped you for Jennifer?’

  She coloured. ‘There was no dropping about it! He wanted to go on seeing me as well, but when I found out about Jennifer I told him there was no way I was going to share, let alone with that vulgar, brassy – well, tart’s too good a word for her. He wanted to have both of us. That’s when I got out – and I was right to.’

  ‘But you were already sharing with his wife,’ Slider said, though he had guessed what came next. Oh, Lord, what fools we mortals be!

  ‘He promised to marry me. I would never have started it otherwise. He said he was going to leave her, that he was only waiting for the right time to tell her. But when he took up with Jennifer, I realised what a fool I’d been. He never meant it. It was just what he said to get me into bed.’

  ‘Well, at least you’ve realised it now,’ Slider said encouragingly. ‘Some people never see the truth, even when it’s under their noses.’

  She didn’t answer that, only stared broodingly at the computer screen, alone with her thoughts. And Slider thought, Yes, she’s discovered the truth, but she’s still here, working for him. Why is that? Just to be near him? Still in love with him, in spite of everything? What was it about some men?

  ‘So when did it start between him and Jennifer?’ he asked.

  Miss Berryman’s attention snapped back into place. ‘Oh, right from the time she first came to work here. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if that wasn’t why he gave her the job – so as to have more opportunities for it.’ She looked into Slider’s eyes as one coming to the worst and barely credible thing. ‘They used to do it in the clients’ houses, you know. The ones we had keys for. On their beds. God knows what would have happened if they’d got caught.’

  Slider wondered for a moment whether the two-timing Meacher had known he was being two-timed by Jennifer. What a pair they were! ‘And yet,’ he said aloud, ‘you wouldn’t have thought she was his type. I wonder what he saw in her.’

  ‘Oh, I understand she was fabulous in the sack,’ Miss Berryman said, in a hard voice. ‘As for her, she thought David was worth a mint, and she couldn’t wait to get her claws into him. She’d have found out!’

  ‘Found out what?’

  She looked at him with narrowed eyes. ‘I do the invoices, and I know how to get into his accounts on the computer. The business is on the rocks. If his wife doesn’t bail him out again, he’ll go bust. Well, serve him right, I say. I know I’ll lose my job if he folds, but it’d be worth it just to see that smug look wiped off his face.’

  ‘His wife has money, has she?’

  ‘Oh, she’s rich
as Croesus. That’s why he’ll never leave her. I learned that the hard way.’

  Instructive, Slider thought, out in the street, though it didn’t get him much further forward. So Jennifer was making the beast with two backs with Meacher, who had previously been bonking Liz Berryman. And what price now the little fluffy one he’d seen the other day – what was her name? – Caroline? Meanwhile, Jennifer was Doctor Dolittling with Jack Potter on the side, and who else? Oh, brave new world, that had such people in it. He should have known Meacher was a villain. Any man who’d sell an Aston to buy a BMW couldn’t be all good.

  In his car, he dialled the number of Meacher’s Denham office, but all he got was an answering-machine in Meacher’s voice.

  ‘I’m sorry we can’t come to the phone right now, but if you’ll leave your telephone number and any short message, we’ll get back to you.’

  Slider put down the receiver with irritation. Why ‘right now’? Was there some other, less immediate sort of now during which the telephone might possibly be answered? And why ‘get back to you’? The phrase had such overtones of hardship dauntlessly overcome, conjuring images of the faithful family dog, accidentally left behind, struggling mile after mile over unfamiliar terrain to find its way home to the masters it adored. Get back to you, indeed! Slider knew perfectly well that his dislike of David Meacher was in essence irrational; but the mark of maturity, he always felt, was the ability to sustain irrational prejudices with grace and dignity. He made a few more telephone calls, and then rang Joanna.

  ‘Fancy a trip out into the countryside?’

  ‘You mean now? As opposed to finishing the pile of ironing I’ve just started, hoovering the sitting room, cleaning the bath and putting in a solid hour’s practice? That’s a hard one to call.’