Cruel as the Grave

by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles

  The Gillespie clubs were a countrywide franchise, so it was probably praise worth having. It also nailed down his job, and the reason for his fitness.

  One of Slider’s own came up behind him: his other sergeant, Hart, still in coveralls, but with the mobcap and mask removed now forensics had finished. Her hair was plaited today in thin rows from front to back, the plaits gathered together in a figure-eight chignon at the back, like a sleeping nest of black snakes. She looked neat, elegant and dangerous – the latter would probably have been her preferred epithet.

  ‘Interesting,’ she said. ‘There’s a Gillespie’s in Lime Grove, boss.’

  ‘I know. Where the old swimming baths used to be.’

  Hart looked blank. She was too young to remember the swimming baths. ‘Anyway, that’s the nearest,’ she said. ‘Maybe he worked there.’ She sniffed. ‘Who would bother framing a poxy certificate from their employer?’

  ‘It must have meant something to him,’ Slider said. ‘There’s nothing else on display.’ He glanced around. ‘It’s not what you’d call a cosy nest, is it? No books, not even a magazine, no entertainment apart from the TV – not even any music.’

  Hart looked at him kindly. ‘iPod in the bedroom, guv. And who reads books?’

  Slider felt mulish. ‘Did you find any paperwork? Letters, bills, bank statements, credit card statements.’

  She looked even kinder. ‘All done online these days, guv. Nobody has paperwork hanging around any more. But,’ she went on quickly, ‘we did find a couple of Moleskines, a notebook and a diary. We’ve bagged them up. And his laptop was on the coffee table.’

  ‘So I heard. I suppose we have to be thankful for small mercies. Can we move on – all this pastel blandness is giving me an ice-cream headache.’

  ‘I was just going to get the canvass organized, boss, if you’ve finished with me here,’ Hart said.

  ‘All right. Carry on. I’ll finish looking round, get a feeling for the place.’

  The bathroom was spotless, and contained a huge variety of grooming aids: hair products, skin unguents, toners, creams and serums, bath oils, shower gels, colognes and after-shaves, nose-clippers, tweezers, two magnifying mirrors, electric hair tongs, and in a cupboard in the corner the largest collection of fluffy towels of different sizes that Slider had ever seen.

  Atherton marvelled over it all. ‘And I thought I was fussy.’

  ‘It’s his profession,’ said Slider. ‘With you it’s only a hobby.’

  Atherton investigated a leather toilet bag on the windowsill. ‘Is this make-up?’

  ‘Must be the girlfriend’s.’

  ‘No, this one says foundation for men.’ He pulled out various sticks and bottles. ‘It’s all for men. Stone the crows, it’s a bag of butch slap.’

  ‘Or it’s a pigment of your imagination,’ Slider offered.

  ‘Pinch me. Nope. It’s real all right. And, by the way, no girlie stuff, you notice. It’s looking as though the girlfriend didn’t spend much time here. Didn’t live here, anyway.’

  And so back to the bedroom, now minus the body. Only a ghastly stain showed where it had been. ‘Sic transit,’ said Slider.

  ‘Inglorious Tuesday,’ Atherton replied.

  On one of the bedside cabinets there was a leather-covered box, which proved to contain six wristwatches. They fitted into purpose-built slots, so the box was evidently meant to contain them. ‘It’s a watch caddy,’ Atherton informed him, keeping a straight face. ‘What man can manage without one?’

  ‘Six?’ Slider queried with a pained expression.

  ‘To go with different outfits,’ said Atherton. ‘They’re good ones,’ he noted. ‘He must have been making a good screw.’

  ‘But they’re still here, so no robbery motive.’ Slider opened the bedside drawers. ‘Condoms in both of them. An unopened twelve pack of thin-feel in this one, plus two loose ones, and an opened forty-eight variety pack in the other.’

  Atherton gave a soundless whistle. ‘That’s a lot of action. Any little stimulants to hand?’

  Slider shook his head. ‘Nothing pharmaceutical except a pack of ibuprofen. No sign of drugs at all. This was a clean-living boy.’

  ‘And – did you notice? – no alcohol anywhere. Not so much as a can of beer. That’s unnatural.’

  ‘I’m beginning to suspect narcissism was his drug of choice.’

  The mirrored wardrobe contained a large collection of fine clothes, all clean, carefully hung and impressively organized. Suits were hung together, jackets and coats together, trousers in another place, leisure clothes in another, shirts arranged by colour. Some sweaters were hung up on padded hangers, others – the pure wool ones – were folded in a range of cedar drawers inside one end of the wardrobe. Other drawers held T-shirts and underwear. Shoes and trainers – a multiplicity of them – were neatly racked. There were two pairs of shoes in boxes that appeared never to have been worn.

  ‘The man’s inhuman!’ Atherton complained. ‘Look, look at this tag – he had his jeans dry-cleaned! Who does that?’

  ‘And it looks as though his underpants have been ironed,’ Slider said, similarly bemused.

  ‘If he made the girlfriend do it,’ said Atherton, ‘that may be why she slugged him. I know I would.’

  ‘Speaking of the girlfriend – there are no women’s clothes here.’

  ‘It’s definite, then, she wasn’t living here,’ Atherton said.

  On the narrow top shelf of the wardrobe – the sort of make-up space left by fitting the wardrobes floor to ceiling, the place where you put things you didn’t use often, because they were inconveniently high up – there were two expensive tennis racquets in leather covers, and a box containing a pair of black inline fitness skates. That seemed to be all, until Atherton, with his extra reach, felt all the way back, and pulled out another shoe box. ‘What was wrong with this pair?’ he said.

  But inside were bundles of notes, fifties and twenties, held together by rubber bands. Atherton did a quick count. ‘Fifties are twenty to a bundle – that’s one, two, three … nine, ten. No, eleven. Eleven thousand pounds. And twenties – also twenty to a bundle, how annoying of him – four hundred pounds each, five of them, another two thousand. Thirteen thousand pounds. Well, well. I wonder what he was up to.’

  ‘Need he have been up to anything?’

  ‘Normal people don’t keep large amounts of cash in the wardrobe.’

  ‘He might just have been suspicious of banks,’ Slider said.

  ‘Oh, I do hope not,’ said Atherton. ‘I’ve taken a dislike to Mr Clean Living. No one’s that spotless. I want him to be bad.’

  ‘Well, at least it’s more evidence of no robbery.’ He stood still and looked around, frowning. ‘She said she found him like that this morning. And he was killed earlier.’

  ‘It’s not necessarily a setback,’ Atherton reasoned. ‘She had a row with him last night and slugged him. Ran off in a panic. Then this morning returned to the scene of the crime like a dog to its vomit—’

  ‘Thank you for that image.’

  ‘And realized properly what she’d done. Cue weeping, hysteria—’

  ‘And calling the police.’

  ‘To make herself look less guilty. “Wasn’t me, guv – it was me what called you in.”’

  ‘Well, it could have been that way, I suppose,’ Slider allowed. You couldn’t expect the ordinary members of public to act rationally. And it was surprising how often people did return to the scene of the crime, particularly when the crime had been committed on impulse, in a violent passion. A mixture of curiosity and disbelief compelled them to have another look. Did I really do that? Wow, I really did do that.

  ‘And she was all over blood,’ Atherton added reassuringly.

  Finally, back to the bed. It had been made – in the sense that the duvet had been pulled up and smoothed and the pillows were undented. If it weren’t for the evidence of the blood, they might have concluded that it had not been slept in. Slider lifted
the pillows to look underneath them. ‘Hello!’ he said. ‘What have we here?’

  It was a folded bundle of banknotes – twenties. Slider counted them. ‘Seven hundred pounds. Now what’s that all about?’

  ‘A test, like the princess and the pea?’ Atherton suggested. ‘If she could feel the money through the pillow, she was of the true blood royal.’

  ‘It suggests payment for sex,’ Slider said, with a frown. ‘Otherwise, why under the pillow?’

  ‘But who was paying whom?’ Atherton asked.

  As they came out of the flat’s door, Slider noted that the door to number five, opposite, was open a crack. Someone was watching through the gap. Slider looked across enquiringly. The door opened revealing a tiny old lady, who beckoned, importantly but nervously. She looked ancient, but was smartly dressed in a tweed skirt, twinset and pearls, and shiny court shoes. Her white hair was permed and carefully arranged, her face fully made up. She looked benign and attractive, but more importantly, her bright blue eyes were intelligent and direct.

  ‘Are you the chief officer?’ she asked. ‘The “boss”?’ It was clear from her tone that there were inverted commas round the colloquialism.

  ‘I’m Detective Chief Inspector Slider, ma’am, and I’ll be heading this investigation. This is Detective Sergeant Atherton.’

  She ignored Atherton. It was the top dog she wanted. Slider knew the type. Always complain straight to the manager. Don’t waste your time with anyone lower down. And he’d have bet she’d always got what she wanted.

  ‘I’m Mrs Gershovitz,’ she told him. ‘Ida Gershovitz. That poor young man is dead, isn’t he? I saw them carry him out in a bag. And the girl – I saw them take her away, crying most dreadfully. Was it a burglary? There are some bad people about these days. You aren’t safe in your own home.’

  He felt he ought to reassure her, without giving too much away. ‘It wasn’t a burglary,’ he said. ‘Did you know him?’

  ‘Only to speak to. But he always said hello and gave me a smile when we passed in the hall. Nice manners. Not like some I could mention. I was glad to have somebody quiet and pleasant opposite – you just never know these days, do you? And obliging. When I had to get a heavy box down once from the wardrobe, I came across and knocked, and asked him to help me, and he couldn’t have been nicer. “Call me Eric,” he said. I had an uncle Eric, my father’s younger brother. It’s a nice name – unusual these days. So he came across and lifted the box down for me with no trouble, just as if it was a feather! I said to him, “My, you’re very strong, aren’t you?” And he said, “It’s my job. I’m a fitness trainer.” We had quite a little chat about it. He told me he worked at the gym in Lime Grove, teaching people how to stay fit. Even told me some little exercises I could do.’ She smiled to show how absurd that was. ‘“Never too late to keep yourself fit,” he said. “You’ll live longer that way.” And now he’s dead. What a terrible waste! Just a young man, his whole life ahead of him. I’m ninety-one, do you believe that? Ninety-one, and I’m still here, and he’s gone. What a world! Was it an accident? Or heart, maybe? Those very fit ones, they can sometimes be damaging their hearts with all that exertion.’

  ‘Did you hear a disturbance last night?’ Slider asked.

  ‘A disturbance? No, I can’t say I did. But these flats are well built, well insulated. You don’t hear your neighbours much.’ She shook her head, thinking, then lifted her eyes to his. ‘But they did have a quarrel yesterday, Eric and that young woman.’

  ‘A quarrel? What time was that?’

  ‘It was about half past six. I’d just come back from the social club. My bridge afternoon. It finishes at six, but I’d stopped to talk to Geraldine Beekman. Her husband died just a month ago. The club isn’t far, but I get a taxi, because I find the buses difficult – they will start off before you’re properly sitting down. My friend Rhona was thrown off her feet that way and broke her hip. And I’d let myself in and come up in the lift, because I can’t manage the stairs any more, not easily, and as I got out of the lift, there she was, the young woman, standing at the door arguing with him.’

  ‘What about?’

  ‘Well, I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but it looked as if she was asking him for something, pleading with him, and he was refusing. He had his arms folded across his chest, like this, standing in the doorway as if he wasn’t going to let her in. And then he saw me, I suppose, because he stepped back and slammed the door, and she rushed past me in tears, and ran down the stairs. I was quite upset about it, because I didn’t like to think of him being unkind to her. But of course, one doesn’t know what had been going on between them before that. She might have been quite unreasonable, for all one knows.’

  Lingoss was obviously her pet, and she didn’t want to think badly of him.

  ‘Did you hear anything more that evening, or this morning?’ Slider asked.

  ‘No,’ she said with genuine regret. ‘Nothing. But I was watching television all evening, so I wouldn’t, really. And this morning after I got up I didn’t hear anything, or know anything about it until I was looking out of the kitchen window and saw the police car arrive down below, and the police come to the door. So naturally I came to my door to see what was going on and who they were coming for.’ She shook her head sadly. ‘That poor young man.’

  ‘Would you be willing to make a statement about the quarrel yesterday, if it turns out to be important?’ Slider asked.

  She beamed. ‘Certainly. It would be my duty.’

  Clearly it would also be her pleasure. Slider thanked her, and they turned away.

  ‘Back to the factory, I think,’ said Slider. ‘Have a word with the chief suspect.’

  ‘It’s annoying that he was killed in the evening,’ Atherton said. ‘I mean, if the old girl’s right, and the girlfriend left him obviously alive, she must have come back.’

  ‘We know she came back,’ said Slider impatiently. ‘She was there this morning.’

  ‘No, I mean came back in between times to kill him. But it’s a lot of to-ing and fro-ing. Makes it look untidy.’

  ‘Relationships are untidy. And why the money under the pillow?’

  ‘That could have been there for a while. Maybe he just hadn’t put it away yet.’

  ‘That’s no answer,’ said Slider.

  TWO

  Text and the Single Girl

  Kelly-Ann Hayes had a snubbily pretty face, though at the moment it was swollen and blotchy with weeping. Her eyes were puffed almost closed; and there was also a little crop of fresh spots below the right corner of her mouth. She looked very young, and very pathetic, hunched like a bird in the rain over her misery.

  Slider had taken Gascoyne in with him, as having a kinder face than Atherton, who could be intimidating. Swilley was still there for the female cover. She was tall, blonde and babelicious in a Venice Beach sort of way, but there was nothing soft about her. She was the best shot in the firm, and the best at martial arts, and she suffered fools less than gladly. Many a new arrival at the factory started by having a casual crack at her and ended regretting it.

  ‘She’s negative for drugs and alcohol,’ Swilley reported before they went in, ‘and no bruises or scratches, nothing to indicate a struggle. She had blood on the knees of her jeans, her cuffs, and smears on her hands, forehead and cheek.’

  ‘As though she’d brushed her hair back?’ he suggested.

  ‘Consistent with that. I haven’t managed to get anything out of her yet. Any mention of deceased just starts her crying again.’

  ‘She might respond to a new face,’ Slider said. So it proved – though it might be simply that she was responding to his maleness. He had long contended that many, if not most, upset females would prefer to unburden themselves to a fatherly man than to a woman, even a motherly one, which Swilley wasn’t. Women expected judgement from other women, while men were there to be manipulated. Atherton said this proved him a world-weary cynic – which was something, coming from Atherton.r />
  But certainly Kelly-Ann looked up as he came in, and her eyes remained on him as he sat down, made a show of making himself comfortable, and asked her if she wanted another cup of tea. She shook her head.

  ‘Now then,’ Slider said cosily, ‘let’s start with you. How old are you, Kelly-Ann?’

  ‘Nineteen,’ she answered easily.

  ‘And what do you do?’

  ‘I’m a beauty therapist,’ she said with a touch of pride. Slider nodded, and she added, ‘At Harmonies.’

  ‘Harmonies? Where’s that?’

  ‘At Gillespie’s. It’s the health and beauty centre there. Gillespie’s in Lime Grove.’

  Swilley rolled her eyes at Gascoyne; in ten seconds he’d got more out of her than Swilley had in hours. Gascoyne shrugged, not knowing what she was rolling about.

  ‘That must be nice,’ Slider said, and Kelly-Ann nodded. Her shoulders were beginning to unhunch. ‘What sort of therapies do they do there?’

  ‘Oh, we do everything – hair, nails, waxing, electrolysis. And stuff like massage and reflexology, but you have to have special training for those. But I’m going to do a course on seaweed wraps after Christmas, when it’s quieter. It’s our busy time now so I can’t be spared.’

  How easily she had been distracted, Slider thought. Casually he said, not as if it was a question, ‘Erik worked there as well, didn’t he? Is that where you first met him?’

  She put her hands between her thighs and squeezed in, her shoulders going up again. But she said, ‘Yeah,’ on an outward sigh; and then, as Slider continued to look interested, she went on. ‘My first day, he came up for a mud facial. He has one every month, to keep his skin nice, because he says shaving is terrible for men’s skin. He gets it on the house, because his appearance is important, to attract clients. It wasn’t me that did it, though. Jerrika always did them, and went over his face with tweezers. Ingrown hairs can ruin your skin. They can go septic, like. He’s got lovely skin. Soft – but not like a woman’s soft. His is firm as well.’