‘Ouch,’ said Joanna. ‘Your dad spends every Saturday with you?’
‘I must try harder,’ Slider said.
‘At least he’ll have you around for the paternity leave,’ Joanna murmured. She was drifting back to sleep.
Slider was wide awake now, though. He waited a little while, until Joanna’s breathing had slowed into sleep mode, then eased himself carefully out of bed. If he stayed here, he’d start thinking about the case. Better go and play with his boy, and show him it didn’t take a divorce to get his father’s attention.
Mr Slider – who would be coming up with Lydia from the granny flat for lunch – arrived bearing a roasting tin in which lay an enormous leg of lamb, studded with garlic and sprigs of rosemary, ready to go in the oven.
‘It’s huge,’ Joanna said admiringly. ‘You could feed an army.’
‘Leftovers are no tragedy,’ Mr Slider said serenely, smiling at her. He looked like a leaner, more lined and weathered version of her husband. His smile was the same, and the way his hair grew – though his was all grey – and his eyes … It made Joanna shiver. She loved Bill so consumingly that it unnerved her to think there could be more than one of him, or even someone who looked a bit like him. Sometimes George had a look of Bill about the eyes … Nature, eh? Full of little tricks to make you catch your breath.
‘Besides,’ said Mr Slider, ‘you never know who might turn up. Always good to have a bit extra, in case. Angels unawares.’
He must have been psychic, because hardly had the lamb gone in the oven when Atherton phoned.
Joanna answered it. ‘Hullo! What’s up?’
‘Why should something be up?’
‘You usually phone to wrench my husband from my side.’
‘Oh, would t’were that it were! But this is not that. Emily’s back. I’ve fetched her from the airport, but the fridge is empty. I was going to go out to the Seven-Eleven to buy a tragic frozen lasagne, when I had a sudden vivid conviction that you wanted to invite us to lunch.’
‘Just came over you, did it?’
‘It was amazing. Such a strong feeling. Do you think I could be psychic?’
‘Psychotic, possibly.’
‘I expect you’re having a proper Sunday lunch? Roast beef and Yorkshire—’
‘Lamb.’
‘—roast potatoes, all the veg, proper gravy—’
‘Get off your knees, Atherton!’ Joanna commanded sternly. ‘You can’t drive in that semi-recumbent posture.’
‘I love a woman who can quote Wilde,’ he chuckled. And then, faintly alarmed. ‘When you said “drive”, you did mean—’
‘Here, not the Seven-Eleven. I’ll set two more places.’
He brought two bottles of wine. ‘Claret, with lamb,’ he instructed. And then: ‘Oh, blimey, you can’t drink, can you? I’m an insensitive clod. Look, I’ll abstain with you. Solidarity.’
Just for a moment he was serious. Joanna looked into his eyes and felt a little cold finger on the back of her neck. There had been a time, when she and Bill were having a rough time and it looked as though they wouldn’t make it, when she had thought that perhaps … She had always liked Jim, had even been attracted to him. He was handsome, intelligent, everything a girl could want, and he liked her. A lot. But he was not Bill. She had never loved anyone before Bill, and would never love anyone else like that. It was the absolute, no-questions-to-be-asked, nothing-to-be-done-about-it, that’s-it-for-your-lifetime love. He was her right place, her home. And having seen Jim through a number of relationships, she didn’t think he had ever felt that. He and Emily seemed happy together, and she hoped they would stay a couple, but she didn’t think he felt about Emily as she felt about Bill. It was sad.
She touched his hand briefly and said, ‘You can drink. I’ve actually gone off the whole idea of wine, so it’s no hardship. Must be hormones, I suppose.’ Then she turned to Emily. ‘How was Washington?’
‘Fascinating,’ she said. She had the bare-eyed look of someone from another time zone. ‘You’re looking well.’
‘I look like a traffic hazard,’ Joanna corrected. ‘Glad to be back?’
‘Mostly,’ she said. ‘The cats were glad to see me.’
‘I am too,’ said Atherton.
‘They show it more.’
‘Well, Siamese are highly strung. Did you know domestic pets get the same mental health issues as humans?’
‘Seems reasonable,’ said Joanna cautiously.
‘Emily was telling me. Some animal psychologists at Stanford did a study. They asked a representative sample of dogs how their mental health had been recently, and ninety-eight per cent replied “Rough”.’
When they all sat down, Lydia produced a small tissue-wrapped gift for Joanna: a baby cardigan she had knitted herself. ‘I did it in yellow, so it will be all right whichever you have.’
‘You’ve really held off from knowing the sex?’ Emily said. ‘How disciplined of you.’
‘She never wants to know what I’m getting her for Christmas, either,’ said Slider.
‘But how will you choose a name?’ Emily asked. ‘I’ve always thought that must be the most fun part of pregnancy.’
‘I’ve always felt you can’t really choose a name until you see it,’ said Joanna. ‘I mean, what if you decide you’re going to call it, say, Archie, and when it comes out it just isn’t an Archie?’
‘Certainly wouldn’t be if it was a girl,’ said Atherton.
‘You could have alternatives, a girl’s name and a boy’s name,’ said Emily.
‘And a yellow name, in case it isn’t either,’ said Atherton.
‘I don’t care about all that pink and blue stuff anyway,’ said Joanna. ‘Babies don’t know the difference.’
‘Did you know,’ Atherton said pouring wine, ‘that at the turn of the last century, it was blue for a girl and pink for a boy? Nobody knows how it switched round.’
‘I believe it,’ Joanna said. ‘Before the war, horse-show rosettes were blue for first and red for second. Now it’s the other way round.’
‘That makes sense,’ said Emily. ‘We talk about things being “blue-ribbon” when they’re the best.’
‘And these potatoes,’ said Mr Slider, passing the dish of roasties, ‘used to be called baked potatoes when I was a lad. A roast potato was the jacket sort you cook in the embers.’
‘I remember that,’ Slider said. ‘Mum always called this sort baked potatoes when I was a boy.’
George, mouth open and brow furrowed, was following the conversation with intense interest. ‘You’re talking about babies, aren’t you?’ he said. ‘When you say potatoes you mean babies.’
‘He’s onto us,’ Atherton said with a wink.
George was pleased. ‘I know about babies,’ he boasted.
‘What do you know?’ Mr Slider asked.
George thought furiously. ‘Jayden says, when a baby’s borned, you get a present so you won’t be jealous,’ he recalled.
‘We have got to get him some new friends,’ Joanna said to Slider.
He looked round the table at the faces, and thought, Family! It’s everything. And he thought of Erik Lingoss, who had none. Damn, I don’t want to think about Lingoss. So he thought, as a counter-irritant, about Matthew and Kate, and felt the therapeutic sting of guilt that he had not managed to hold their family together. Irene had left him because the demands of the Job had made him a neglectful husband. Joanna was fine with it because she had a career of her own. But George was already wistfully longing for a father who was there every Saturday. He must do better. And the new baby …
‘Are you all right?’ Joanna said. ‘You looked as though you had a pain.’
He cleared his thoughts and smiled. ‘Trying not to think about work.’ He turned to Emily. ‘Tell us about the build-up to the Primaries. Who’s going to be the next president of the United States?’
‘What’s “primaries”?’ George asked suspiciously.
‘He means babies,�
� Atherton stage-whispered.
THIRTEEN
Sunt Lacrimae Rerum
McLaren had left his card with the proprietors of the shops along Russell Close, and Kadan at the heel bar rang him on Monday morning. ‘He’s just arrived, the guy from K D Electronics. He’s opened the shop,’ he said. ‘You said you wanted to know if he turned up.’
‘Yeah, right. Thanks a lot,’ said McLaren, and got over there as fast as possible, in case he closed up again.
The shop was a narrow slice – in fact, a half-shop, the heel bar being the other half. It had a counter along the right side with packed shelves behind, and seemed to deal in, at least, mobile phones and accessories, tablets, burglar alarms, baby monitors, security cameras and motion-sensitive lights. The only furniture was a beat-up red plastic chair for the customer who felt faint in the presence of so much technology.
The proprietor was a short, burly young man who counteracted the lack of heating in the shop with a donkey jacket and beanie cap. His name, he said, was Kachela Darain, originally from Birmingham, ‘But everybody calls me KD.’ His swarthy face was decorated with various bits of beard, moustache and cheek tufts, like the victim of a palsied barber, and he wore a couple of silver rings in one eyebrow. But he had a bright, welcoming smile, and greeted McLaren with friendly enthusiasm, even after he learned that he was police.
‘Yeah, I missed all the fun, dint I?’ he said. ‘What a week to take off! But there’s only me, see, so I have to close up when I go anywhere.’
‘Where did you go?’ McLaren asked.
‘Birmingham. There was this thing on at the BCEC – big electronics show. Gotta go to that! And then I went to see my mum for a few days. She lives in Selly Oak. My sister’s getting married and she’s in a right old tizzy, my mum. So what’s with this bloke in the flats? Did he really get murdered?’
‘Did you know him?’
‘Nah,’ he said with genuine regret. ‘It would’ve been a bit of excitement, innit? So what can I do for you, mate?’
McLaren explained, and KD’s face brightened. ‘Yeah, I got two cameras. One’s at the back, covering the shop, in case of break-ins. The other’s trained on the street.’ He drew McLaren’s attention to it: fixed at the top of the window, it poked its lens out between two slats of the blind. ‘I use it for demonstrations for customers. You know, when they come in first time for security and don’t know what they want. It’s top of the line, this one. Fabulous definition, infrared night vision, all the extras. Blummin’ brilliant. Course, they generally want something cheaper, but sometimes I can talk ’em up.’ He grinned.
‘And would you still have the recordings for last Tuesday?’
‘Tuesday? You’re just in time. It’s a seven-day recorder, automatically tapes over itself after that. I’ll show you what there is on the monitor over here. If you want anything, I can download it onto a firestick for you.’
Porson encountered Slider in the corridor on his way back from the gents. ‘The march is going ahead,’ he said. ‘I can’t keep your firm out of it unless you’ve got something serious to follow up. Where are you?’
Slider was assembling his magnificent body of negatives for parade when McLaren came out and said, ‘Got something, guv!’
‘I hope it’s good,’ said Slider.
‘Might be,’ said McLaren.
He led them to his monitor while Slider explained to Porson about K D Electronics.
‘The camera’s pointing straight out at the street,’ McLaren went on, ‘so it’s not actually covering the entrance to the flats. But I’ve logged this motor’ – he cued up the tape – ‘going in at nine thirty-six p.m., and coming out again at nine fifty-nine.’ He looked at Slider. ‘Just the times we want?’
Slider nodded. ‘I know that’s not all you’ve got to tell me. You’ve identified the car?’
‘Got the index. It’s a top camera, this one. Clear as day. The motor’s a three-year-old Mazda3. You can’t see the colour cos it’s on night vision, but it’s Soul Red Metallic – flashy little bugger. And the registered owner is Gilda Steenkamp.’
Slider felt a thump of excitement in his gut, which had undertones of regret. He never liked it when it was a woman.
Porson groaned. ‘Not another celebrity! What is it with you? The last thing we need is to go stirring up another hermit’s nest!’
‘She flatly denied seeing him on Tuesday,’ Slider said. ‘Denied even having an appointment with him. Wait a minute! Norma – have we got her phone number?’
‘On it, boss,’ said Swilley, pulling out various sheets. ‘Here we are. From the client list in the black book. Mobile and house.’
‘Check them against his phone log, incoming, for the last day.’ He looked at Porson. ‘She denied having an appointment, but maybe it was a last-minute thing.’
A breathless silence while Swilley ran her finger down the list. ‘Got it,’ she said at last. ‘The mobile. Nine twenty-five – twenty-two seconds.’
‘But she must’ve already been on the way by then,’ McLaren said. ‘So she’s not making a new appointment.’
Swilley looked up. ‘Yes, and what could she say to him in twenty-two seconds?’
‘Maybe just checking he was at home,’ Slider said. ‘“It’s me. Where are you?” “At home.” “Are you alone?” “Yes.” “Good. I’m on my way.” Then she rings off before he can object.’
‘You’d think she’d check he was in before setting out,’ McLaren objected.
‘Maybe she was upset. Just lit out to see him without thinking he might be out,’ said Swilley. ‘Or they could’ve made the arrangement last time they met. Maybe what she said was, “Shall I get some chips on the way?”’
Porson was pondering, his shaggy brows leaning together like two tired yaks. ‘It’s enough. Bring her in,’ he concluded. But he sighed. Celebs, like children, might come trailing clouds of glory, but they also came trailing clouds of lawyers and trouble. Upsetting them caused unhappiness among the top brass. And unhappy top brass liked to spread the misery as widely as possible, with generous provision for those beneath. But you had to do what you had to do. ‘She’s got some questions to answer, and doing it here’ll concentrate her mind.’
‘Yes sir.’
‘But do it gently.’ Porson backpedalled a bit.
‘Of course, sir. And if we request her phone record, it’ll show where she was when the call was made. We can trace her journey.’
‘Then she can’t deny she was there,’ said Swilley with satisfaction.
‘Do it,’ said Porson. ‘Make it priority. Get your ducks in a row.’
Slider nodded and turned to McLaren. ‘Meanwhile …’
‘I know, guv,’ he said resignedly. ‘Trace the Mazda, both ways.’
There were interview rooms downstairs behind the front office where they took arrested villains for questioning: stark, bare rooms smelling of feet and guilt and lies and despair. Upstairs, there was the soft room, which had carpet, an upholstered sofa and chairs, and prints on the walls, where they took witnesses and the bereaved. Or celebrities, and others who needed careful handling. Atherton thought that being subjected to such ghastly fabrics and pictures was punishment verging on the cruel and unusual, but voicing the opinion drew retorts from his colleagues like ‘pretentious’, ‘ponce’, and other epithets beginning with ‘p’.
Gilda Steenkamp, tall, elegant, stately of gait, looked as out of place in the cop shop as a giraffe in a chicken run. After some thought, Slider had asked her to come in voluntarily rather than arresting her – he could always go that way if she refused – and slightly to his surprise she had agreed, and slightly more surprisingly had turned up alone. No solicitor. He couldn’t decide whether that was evidence of innocence or sheer chutzpah. She looked around the soft room as she was led in with an expression more of surprise than horror, as if wondering that such places could be.
She sat, refused a beverage, and fixed the large, tired, bleak eyes on Slider. ‘I knew you wo
uldn’t leave it at that,’ she said. ‘I’d have been surprised if you hadn’t come back.’
‘You didn’t tell me the truth,’ he said mildly.
‘My private life is my own affair. I felt no obligation to talk to you about it.’ He waited that one out. ‘Besides, I was at home,’ she said. ‘One must be careful what one says at home.’ She seemed to be appealing to him to understand the logic of it.
‘Your husband might have come in, or overheard,’ he said.
‘I didn’t mean that.’
‘Really?’
‘Not entirely.’
‘But he didn’t know about you and Erik.’ She was silent, looking at her hands, which was admission enough. ‘All the same, you must understand that lying to the police is not only pointless, but lays you open to serious charges, with penalties up to and including imprisonment. So now let’s have the truth, please.’ He had understood her reply of ‘not entirely’, and added, ‘In this neutral place, you can talk frankly.’
‘To you, perhaps.’ She looked at Atherton. ‘But we’re not alone.’
‘That is not possible,’ Slider said. ‘Regulations, I’m afraid. But what I know, my colleague knows. For these purposes we are one person. However, if you’d prefer a female officer to be present …?’
She wrinkled her nose. ‘No, thank you. I suspect …’ She didn’t finish that thought. Her shoulders went down in surrender. ‘Very well. What do you want to know?’
‘Let’s start with your relationship with Erik Lingoss. How did you meet him?’
‘My sister told me about him. She heard of him from a friend who’d been training with him at a gym.’
‘Shapes in Kensington High Street?’
‘Yes. Myrna was a member there. I went with her once, but I don’t like gyms. They’re too noisy and – oh, this will sound precious, but you never know who may be photographing you, and when you’re famous … You don’t want pictures of you in unattractive positions getting onto the internet.’
‘I understand.’
She nodded. ‘I’ve always tried to keep fit, exercising at home – I have my own exercise room set up – but it’s hard to keep motivated. And one never knows if one’s doing the right things. So a personal trainer at home seemed the perfect solution. And my sister recommended Erik.’
Cruel as the Grave Page 17
