Cruel as the Grave

by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles

  ‘I’m not sure I do any more, but I didn’t like that I did, or that I had to.’

  ‘It takes a wife to understand that sentence. But I know what you mean. She looks like the obvious suspect. But wouldn’t it take someone with enormous self-confidence to rely on a set-up like that for an alibi?’

  ‘And she seems like a bear of little brain. And yet …’ He frowned.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘It doesn’t do to ignore the obvious. Or to underestimate people’s stupidity. She could have killed him in the evening, and gone back in the morning for absolutely no reason whatever. People do that sort of thing all the time. Trouble is, when you present a case in court, the jury like a motive they can understand. You can’t just shrug and say, well, that’s how it was.’

  ‘It’s early days,’ she comforted him. ‘I’m sure there are lots of juicy suspects out there just waiting for you to stumble over them. Big meaty men you can enjoy taking down.’

  ‘Hmm. It doesn’t change the fact that this girl, not even out of her teens, was being used for sex by a complete—’

  ‘Bounder? Darling, she’s over eighteen – she can do as she likes.’

  ‘And that makes it better? Eighteen is still a child, no matter what the law says.’

  She knew what was troubling him. Kate, his daughter from his first marriage, was fourteen. It wouldn’t be long before she was sixteen and could legally have sex. She said, ‘The fathers of girls always have a hard time letting go. They never want to think of their daughters having sex.’

  He gave her a reluctant smile. ‘If that’s a girl,’ he said, nodding towards her bulge, ‘you’ll find out. It’s not all princess dresses and unicorns, you know.’

  ‘No daughter of mine is going to wear princess dresses. And no unicorns! She’ll be getting her first socket wrench at four.’

  ‘And the trombone lessons?’

  ‘Squeezed in between bricklaying and heavy engineering.’

  ‘That’s good. It’ll keep her busy, because she’s never leaving the house until she’s thirty-five,’ Slider said genially. ‘Is there any pud?’

  FOUR

  Do You Know the Crumpet Man?

  ‘Did you know,’ said Atherton, as they turned into Lime Grove, ‘that A Tale of Two Cities was first serialized in two English regional newspapers?’

  ‘Really? Which ones?’

  ‘It was the Bicester Times, it was the Worcester Times.’

  Slider looked at him. ‘When is Emily coming back?’

  ‘Sunday. Why?’

  ‘You need someone to take the edge off you.’

  ‘You don’t understand what it’s like, having curatorship of a magnificent brain,’ Atherton complained.

  ‘Oh, thank you,’ said Slider. ‘This is it.’

  Gillespie’s had kept the Edwardian façade of the old Hammersmith Baths, but nothing else; behind, it was all modern and brash: bare floors and walls, harsh lighting, and thumping work-out music so loud it’d make your ears bleed. Slider enquired after the manager, while Atherton sloped cautiously up to the Harmonies centre like a cat entering a roomful of toddlers and finger paint. He looked as if he feared forcible beautification.

  Diedre Donnelly (“Call me Deedee – everybody does,”) had an office which, although it had one largely glass wall, was insulated from the music. It still came up through the floor in a disconcerting pulse, but at least conversation was possible. She was a short, stocky woman in her forties with the look of impatiently hidden muscles; a black skirt suit over a white shirt signally failed to make her look civil servant material. Despite full make-up and hair pinned back in a French pleat, there was something indefinably untidy about her, as though she had only recently been abducted by the style police. You could imagine her ripping off the outfit with a magnificent two-handed gesture and emerging in a body suit and cape, ready to fight crime and injustice.

  Her office was also untidy, cheaply-furnished in Corporate Stingy style, and overflowing on all sides with documents, folders, brochures and dead house plants. The Gillespie’s logo – an outline man and woman embraced by a curly capital G, as though by a giant snake (one small logo for the company, one giant meal for a boa constrictor) – covered one wall and appeared on many objects, including a circular badge on Deedee’s lapel, just above her plastic name-tag.

  She greeted Slider in a friendly but distracted manner. ‘Please, sit down – sorry about the mess. Just put that lot on the floor – here, I’ll do it.’ She cleared a chair for him and went behind her desk for the only other sitting-place, then was up again instantly. ‘Oh, would you like a coffee?’

  ‘No, thanks,’ Slider said. He hated the expression ‘a coffee’ with irrational fervour, and suspected the beverage provided by someone who used it would be undrinkable. ‘I’d like to talk to you about Erik Lingoss.’

  ‘Erik with a k,’ she said, wrinkling her nose in a reaction that interested Slider. ‘That was how he always introduced himself. As if it mattered. Actually, his HMRC records have it as Eric with a c. I think he just wanted to make himself more interesting.’

  ‘You didn’t like him?’ Slider suggested.

  She put her hands to her cheeks. ‘Oh God, I forgot for a moment. He’s really dead? He was actually murdered? That’s terrible. Forget what I just said. Wait, you’re a police officer – you can’t, can you? Sorry!’ Her very slight Dublin accent and rapid delivery had a slightly soothing effect that Slider tried to resist.

  ‘Tell me why you didn’t like him,’ Slider said, smiling to show it was not a hostile question.

  ‘Oh well, he was a brilliant trainer, don’t get me wrong. He’d the way of motivating people – of either sex – and getting the best out of them.’

  ‘Trainer of the year?’

  She gave a little shrug. ‘But, you know, it’s countrywide – there are fifty-six Gillespie’s, and the trainer of the year contest is national, so it’s worth having on your CV. Plus there’s a thousand pound prize, not to be sneezed at. I’d not refuse it, I can tell you. Erik was in with a chance to win again this year, if he’d not gone part-time. So that tells you how good he was.’

  ‘Why did he go part-time?’

  ‘Just my impression, you know? But I think the award went to his head a bit. It was just after he got it the second time, he said he wanted to branch out and make more of himself. Set up on his own.’

  ‘Open his own gym?’ Slider queried.

  ‘Oh, there’s a lot of them have that dream,’ she said. ‘Well, I did myself once upon a time, but it’s just bubbles. You’d need a heck of a lot of capital – these days people expect all the machinery, plus the luxury stuff, spas and restaurants and so on. It’s not just a matter of a coupla mats and a weights bench any more. And it’s a crowded field – there’s chains all over the place. Oh yes, I heard Erik talking about it, but it was just if-I-win-the-lottery talk, if you get me? No, I think he wanted to take on private clients, rather than go through a club. There’s good money to be made that way if you can get the client list together. And he was popular with the punters.’

  ‘They liked him?’

  ‘He was very charming when he wanted to be. And Janey, that boy was ripped! Handsome, too. And he got results. I was sorry to lose him – otherwise I wouldn’t have kept him on. It’s not really a Gillespie’s thing to take part-timers – they’re big on corporate loyalty – but I argued the case with them rather than lose him altogether.’

  ‘When did all this happen?’

  ‘A year back. Well, the award is in October, and it was just after he won the second time he came to me and asked to go part-time – two days a week. And that’s how it’s been ever since.’

  ‘So why didn’t you like him?’ Slider asked again.

  She paused for a moment, as if wondering whether or not to be frank. Then she took a deep breath and said, ‘He was a nuisance with the female staff here – every new girl who arrived he had to have. And he treated them like shit – all over the
m to get them into bed, then just using them until he got bored and dropped them. I mean, they can date the punters if they want – I can’t stop them – as long as they do it outside working hours. I won’t have any messing about on the premises. And you can’t stop the staff seeing each other in their private time, though I’d discourage it. But with Erik it was trouble. Most of these Harmonies girls are very young, some of them trainees, school-leavers, and they didn’t know what hit them. He went through them like a combine harvester. There was Emma last year, and Lisa, and Adrienne and Tina before that – I forget them all now. Broken hearts all over the kip. Floods of tears, and girls coming to me as if I was Mother Superior. “Why won’t he answer my texts, Deedee? Why is he treating me like this, Deedee?” Because you’re an eejit, girl, I’d be thinking, but you can’t say that. No, if he hadn’t been so good for business, I’d have found a way to be shot of him, because I was tired of cleaning up his messes.’

  ‘Like Kelly-Ann?’

  She made a face. ‘Last in a long line.’ Then she put her hands to her cheeks again. ‘Janey, I was forgetting again. It really is the last, isn’t it? He’s gone. You don’t think Kelly-Ann did it, sure you don’t?’

  ‘Don’t you think her capable of it?’

  ‘She hasn’t got the gumption. She’s as wet as a week in Limerick. From what I heard, he was bashed on the head, is that right? I don’t think she’d even have the strength. She’s just a Harmonies girl, and she doesn’t train. Some of them do – they get concessionary rates for using the club – but she’s never asked for a card. Mind you, she’s only been here a short time. There’s a big turn-over in Harmonies. A lot of these girls use Gillespie’s as a training-ground, then go on to more exclusive places where they can earn more.’

  Slider nodded, digesting all this, then said, ‘You have some personal data on Lingoss, I assume?’

  ‘Yes, I got his personnel file out yesterday, when I heard, just to have a look at it. Didn’t know if I’d be required to do anything. I’ve never had a staff member die before. Had a geezer drop dead on the treadmill once, a client. That was bad enough. Where’s that file? It’s here somewhere.’ She rummaged messily amongst the paperdrifts, and eventually came up with a manila folder. She leafed through it. ‘I don’t know what you want to know – there’s not much here. Age thirty-six. He didn’t look it,’ she added in parenthesis. ‘Joined Gillespie’s four years ago. Before that he was at Riverside in Chiswick, and before that he was staff physio with Intersys London – the big data company in Brentford – you know? God knows what he did there. Executive neck massages for all I know. He’d an FHT diploma for massage, did I say? And an IHS diploma in Diet, Nutrition and Lifestyle Coaching. References. Employment record with Gillespie’s. Awards. Next of kin – he left that blank.’ She looked up at him. ‘I called him in over it, and he said he didn’t have anyone. Said his parents divorced when he was eighteen and both remarried and he never sees either of them. Said he didn’t even know where they were. No brothers or sisters. When I pressed him – because we’re supposed to have a name, in case of accidents – he said why didn’t I put my name down for it? He smiled when he said it, and d’you know, I near as dammit agreed. I could feel me hand twitch! That’s the power of him. I’d only known him five minutes, but that smile …’ She shuddered. Then read Slider’s face. ‘If he hadn’t been an employee, I could’ve gone for it, I swear to God.’

  ‘He sounds like quite a player. Can you tell me anything about who his friends are? Where he’s working when he’s not here? Anything about his private life?’

  She shook her head. ‘I’ve not had anything to do with him personally, only dealt with some of his discarded girls. But I tell you who probably could help you. You should speak to Ivanka. She’s one of the trainers here, and she and Erik were quite pally. They were an item once upon a time, but they’d stayed friends, for a wonder. Still hung out once in a while.’

  ‘He didn’t break her heart?’

  Deedee grinned. ‘You haven’t met Ivanka. Not one to be messing with. Try to break her heart, she’ll break your arm.’

  Atherton shook his head. ‘Nothing useful. Ten minutes of how badly he treated Kelly-Ann, but nothing about what he did or where he went or who he hung about with.’

  Slider made a show of peering closely at his face. ‘Are you looking unusually toned and plucked, or is it my imagination?’

  Atherton shied his head away. ‘I just had a neck massage and a manicure while we were talking.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘What do you take me for? Of course not. But those girls are seriously bored, I can tell you. No wonder a handsome bounder found them easy pickings.’

  ‘To be clear, this is Lingoss we’re talking about, not you?’

  ‘Two of them have had the Erik treatment – both when they first joined. Thought he was the bee’s knees, got diddled then dropped after a couple of weeks. I heard more than I wanted to about how fabulous he was in bed, but I detected a certain wistfulness as well as wrath.’

  ‘Resentment of Kelly-Ann?’

  ‘No, I didn’t get that. They seemed to be going for feminine solidarity. Though sympathy for Kelly-Ann was mixed with a certain worldly-wise superiority. Mostly they seemed to be enjoying their indignation against Lingoss. It certainly hasn’t occurred to any of them that Kelly-Ann might have clubbed him to death – though they couldn’t offer any suggestions as to who might have.’

  ‘Fortunately,’ Slider said, ‘I’ve got an Ivanka up my sleeve.’

  ‘I thought you were walking oddly. What’s an Ivanka?’

  ‘We’re just going to find out.’

  Ivanka was in the main hall, running on a treadmill with appalling ease. She was tall, slim, beautifully muscled, dressed in three-quarter leggings and a matching cropped top in shiny purple Lycra that left everything to be desired. Her long streaky blonde hair was tied back in a horse tail that swished back and forth mesmerically as she ran. Because of the cortex-bashing music, they had to go round in front of her to catch her attention. Her face was smooth and had the taught, shiny look of someone with very little body fat; she had beautiful smoky eyes, but any claim to beauty was marred by a beaky nose and thin lips. She had evidently gone into a running trance, because her face and the eyes were blank, and it was a noticeable moment before she registered their presence, clicked off the machine and ran to a standstill. When she understood what they wanted, she beckoned them away. ‘I have client in half an hour. We talk until then. Not here – too noisy.’

  Amen to that, Slider thought fervently. In one corner a man in Lycra, presumably a trainer, was bellowing at a man lifting weights, ‘Come ON! Come ON! Five more! Don’t fade on me now! Fight through the burn! Four more! Squeeze it! Pump it! Burn it! Three more! You can do it! You’ve got it!’ The man with the weights made a sort of animal groan, as if what he’d got was the suspicion of a hernia. The trainer sounded demented. Slider contemplated the weights in the sufferer’s hands and just then it seemed only too natural for someone to use one of them for other purposes.

  Ivanka led the way to the cafeteria, the horribly-named GLicious Cafebar. ‘What?’ Atherton appealed sub voce.

  ‘G as in Gillespie’s, I suppose – and also maybe as in “Gee, what delicious food!”?’

  ‘Cafebar, all one word?’

  ‘Settle down. I’m supposed to be the sensitive one.’

  The décor was probably meant to be cool and modern, but came across more as spartan – Ikea with a hint of airport terminal – but at least it was quiet. Ivanka loped like a large lioness across to a corner table and sat down, looking at them expectantly. Slider felt obliged to offer her refreshment, but she asked only for a bottle of water. She looked so fit and pure, with her limpid skin, he thought she’d probably found a way to dispense with food altogether. Maybe you could buy ichor at Ottolenghi’s these days.

  Slider had got some basic details from Deedee and knew that her name was Ivana Anosov; she was thirty-two
, unmarried, originally from Ukraine, had been in England ten years, and joined Gillespie’s about the same time as Lingoss.

  ‘Ms Anosov,’ Slider began.

  But she tapped the plastic name-badge on her front. ‘Ivanka,’ she said. ‘Important to have a sexy name, one the clients can remember. So I am Ivanka, always. That was why Erik changed to a k. People remember it.’ She made a contemptuous sound with her lips. ‘Eric with a c is a nothing name! I told him to change. It made him.’

  ‘You’ve been friends with him for a long time?’

  ‘Tell me first – he is really dead? Somebody really killed him?’

  ‘I’m afraid so.’

  She nodded, and looked introspective for a moment; sad perhaps, but not heartbroken. ‘So,’ she said at last, ‘what you want to know?’

  ‘When did you last see him?’

  She thought about it. ‘Three weeks, maybe.’

  ‘What was your relationship with him? You were lovers once, weren’t you?’

  ‘Long time ago. Now just friends, I guess.’

  ‘Friends with benefits?’ Atherton put in.

  She knew what that meant. ‘I see him here twice a week, pass in the hallway, “Good morning, how are you”. Nothing more. But now and then we meet after work. It would be weeks, then he would ring and say, “Ivanka, come for drink with me,” and we’d meet a few times, then it would go quiet again, see at work only. I think he called me when he’d finished with someone. Just to make sure I was still around.’

  ‘But on those occasions, did you have sex with him?’ Atherton asked.

  She didn’t seem to resent the bluntness. She turned her amazing eyes on him, examined him, and said, with a shrug in her voice, ‘Of course. We were good together. I enjoyed him. But there was nothing …’ She lifted her hands and clasped them together, then let them drop. ‘We were not a couple.’

  ‘Were you before?’ Atherton asked.

  She thought about that. ‘Not really,’ she said at last. ‘At the very beginning it was intense, we spent lot of time together, every moment we could, so people think we were a couple. But it was always not love, just sex. You understand, Erik, he likes to break hearts, but he could not break mine. We stayed friends. I don’t think,’ she added contemplatively, ‘he had many friends.’