Old Bones

by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles

  ‘Sir?’

  Now Porson looked, examining his face. ‘You’re on the circulation list. Must still be on its way. They’re filing Neptune.’

  ‘They’re dropping it?’ Slider had been half expecting it, but the actual words came as a shock, like the bang when the watched rocket goes off.

  ‘I said filing,’ Porson said, in a reasonable tone, which was a warning. ‘As in, anything new comes up and we open it again.’

  ‘So the fix has gone in,’ Slider said bitterly.

  ‘What’s that? What fix?’ Porson scowled at him. ‘Don’t start getting off on one of your high hats. They haven’t got enough to go on, that’s all. Lack of evidence. I told you from the beginning it was thin.’

  ‘Anyone’d be thin if you starved them,’ said Slider.

  ‘Now look here – you want to keep your feet firmly on terra cotta. Start seeing conspiracies everywhere and they’ll be carting you off to the giggle farm.’

  That was all very well, but Porson wasn’t meeting Slider’s eyes. ‘Sir,’ said Slider. Now Porson looked at him, and there was a guilty hesitance in there somewhere which Slider hastened to exploit. ‘Please tell me what’s been going on. I know you know.’ Porson’s eyes shifted to the document he was still holding, and Slider added, ‘And I don’t mean the official version. The truth.’

  Porson sighed heavily. ‘Your witness withdrew her statement. Said she’d made it all up.’

  ‘But—’

  Porson allowed himself a touch of irritation. ‘It’s all here. Black and white. Shannon Bailey was never a creditive witness, and now she’s voluntarily withdrawn her statement. No other witnesses have come forward. The whole thing’s a storm in a mare’s nest. Nothing anyone can do. DPP’s comment’s very fair. Doesn’t blame you, says appearances were all your way, but on examination there’s nothing to go on. Case filed.’ He put the report down on his desk with a terminal thump.

  Slider stared. ‘They put pressure on her. Frightened her. Or maybe paid her off.’

  Porson’s eyebrows lifted, revealing frosty blue pools. ‘Will you get a grip on yourself! Why have you always got to be right and everybody else wrong? You’ve had enough experience of so-called witnesses who make it all up to get attention. Fantasy land.’

  Yes, he had – enough experience to know the difference. Shannon hadn’t wanted to tell, and it had taken patience to win her trust and get it out of her. He had spoken to her, watched her face. He knew how scared she had been.

  Well, in fairness, he had to admit she might have been scared enough to withdraw her statement without any further pressure being put on her. But if anyone had actually wanted the case to go ahead, they would have dealt with her fear. He would have dealt with it if he was handling her. That’s what they did. But they hadn’t done it. They’d sided with the AC against the teenage sex toy. Carver would have thought that was exactly the right thing to do. Us and Them. Shannon wasn’t exactly a Them, but the AC was definitely an Us.

  ‘And Kaylee Adams?’ he said, but he knew the answer to that already.

  ‘Hit and run. It was only Doc Cameron’s opinion she fell. They’ve got another forensic pathologist to look at it—’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘You do?’

  ‘And I bet he’ll explain exactly how those injuries could come about in an RTA.’

  ‘Well, there you are.’ Porson started walking his beat again. Displacement activity – like a caged tiger. ‘Does it ever occur to you that Cameron could be wrong? I mean, he’s not God. And neither are you, by the way.’

  Slider said, ‘What about the sex parties at Holland Lodge? Drugs and underage girls?’

  Porson paced. ‘Where’s your evidence? Anyone can have parties. No law against that. No proof there were drugs or minors there.’

  No, there wouldn’t be, Slider thought, if none of the girls wanted to talk, and why would they unless persuaded? The people attending the parties wouldn’t incriminate themselves. ‘And Peloponnos? His list of names?’

  ‘List of names – what does that mean? Could have been anything. Anyway, he was a bit of a nutter, wasn’t he? Unstable. Topped himself.’

  ‘Sir.’ Slider gave him a reproachful look, and Porson made an irritable turn.

  ‘He wasn’t some knight in shining arbour, you know. Financial improprieties. You were right about that. That trust of his was as crooked as a pig’s hind leg. The Fraud Squad hasn’t got to the bottom of it yet, but I’ve heard they’re saying old Ploppyloss was cyphering off money right and left. Secret bank accounts.’

  Slider was silent. So they were going to blame everything on Peloponnos. Well, it made sense. He was dead, and his only family, his aged mother, had gone back to Greece. If there were ever any need to publish anything, who could object to Peloponnos taking the fall?

  ‘Look,’ said Porson, ‘this is good for you. You brought forward your suspicions, which was right and courageous, they were looked into. This report’s quite complimentary about you. They’ll be even pleaseder if the Fraud Squad gets some of the money back, thanks to you. So you can go on your merry way with a clear conscience.’

  ‘And the establishment doesn’t get rocked to its foundations,’ Slider said.

  Porson scowled. ‘Is that what you wanted? To overthrow the establishment?’

  ‘No, of course not.’

  ‘It’s hard enough to do our job as it is, without more scandals eating away at public confidence. We’ve got the press on our backs, politicians taking pot shots at us, and if our own start trying to bring us down as well—’

  ‘That wasn’t what I wanted, sir,’ Slider said unhappily.

  ‘Just as well. People who pull down ceilings get buried under the rubble. And who’d have been the better for it? It’s always the little people who get hammered in a revolution.’

  Slider looked up, surprised at this piece of insight. The Old Man could be quite sharp.

  Porson said, more kindly, ‘All you’ve got to do now is keep your head down and do your job and everything will be fine. Things could have got very nasty, very nasty indeed. I don’t think you ever fully realized what sort of hornet’s nest you were poking. You’ve had a let-off. Look at it that way. A case like this, rumbling on for years, everyone pissed off at you – if there had been anything in it, I mean. You’d have had a miserable life.’

  Slider thought about it. It was Kaylee that smarted most. What’s dead can’t come to life, I think. But nobody cared about the likes of Kaylee Adams. ‘Sir,’ he said, ‘if you knew all this, why didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘I didn’t know it, not till I got this report. Anyway,’ he added, giving himself away, ‘you were in purdah, as long as you were under investigation by the IPCC.’

  ‘Were?’

  ‘They cleared you. I heard this morning. That’ll be on its way to you as well. You’re all clear. Another win.’ He looked at Slider’s long face and added, ironically, ‘Hooray.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  ‘This is all good,’ Porson said, trying to jolly him. ‘Just keep your nose clean and you’ll be fine. What have you got on? Oh yes, the Trees Estate. The bones. How’s that coming along?’

  ‘Slowly.’

  ‘Good. Fine. Just the ticket. Get stuck into that.’

  ‘Absolutely sir. I’ll do that,’ said Slider.

  Porson’s eyes narrowed. He suspected satire. ‘Slow and steady wins fair maiden. The less your face is seen around the place the better, for a while.’

  Slider understood the interview was at an end, and turned to leave. But when he reached the door, Porson said, ‘That leak?’

  Slider turned, expressing a wary blank.

  ‘It was Atherton, wasn’t it?’ Porson asked with deceptive indifference.

  Slider said, ‘He says it wasn’t. And I believe him.’

  He left. No good deed goes unpunished, so it was said. And everything left a trace of DNA.

  It took him the length of his walk back from Porson�
�s office to his own to make up his mind. He called Hart in.

  ‘What are you working on?’ he snapped.

  She grew alert at his tone. ‘Trying to find the Knights. Searching electoral registers.’

  ‘Hand that over to someone else – LaSalle will do. I want you to find Shannon Bailey. You’re the one who had the contact there, you’ve got the street cred.’

  ‘Shannon? What’s happened to her?’

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe nothing. But she’s withdrawn her evidence.’

  ‘Bastard!’ Hart said – meaning the situation, not the girl. ‘Someone’s got at her.’

  ‘I need to know that she’s all right.’

  ‘And if we can turn her back,’ Hart added with relish.

  ‘Just find her,’ Slider said warningly. ‘Then ring me. Ring me, do you understand? Don’t talk about this to anyone else.’

  ‘Gotcha,’ Hart said smartly, and went. Thank God for an intelligent copper, Slider thought.

  Atherton sloped in. ‘Well?’ he asked.

  ‘Shut the door,’ said Slider. The report hadn’t reached his in-tray yet. When it did he’d have to tell the rest of the firm. For now, he just wanted a sounding board against whom to try out the ramifications.

  ‘It’s not good news, is it?’ Atherton said whimsically.

  ‘When is it ever?’ said Slider.

  The report had Shannon staying with her sister Dakota. Hart tried there first, calculating that Dakota would have got up by now, but would not yet be working, but there was no reply when she rang the doorbell. A policeman develops an instinct for when a place is empty and when there is someone inside ignoring the bell. She went back to her car and sat watching, and was rewarded half an hour later when Dakota appeared, turning into the street from the far end, a tall, slim figure in a very smart jade wool coat and long boots, with a Morrison’s carrier bag in either hand. She crossed the road right under Hart’s nose without seeing her, heading for the front door, and Hart let her get her key in the door before nipping across nimbly and saying, ‘Hello, Dakota. Can I have a word?’

  The girl started violently. ‘Bloody hell fire, you frit me!’ And then, seeing who it was, her expression soured. ‘Oh fuck, it’s you again. What do you want?’

  ‘Language, love,’ Hart said mildly. ‘I just want a word. Can I come in? You don’t wanna discuss your biz in the street, do you?’

  Dakota looked up and down the road, and then shrugged. ‘Oh, all right,’ she said. ‘But you can’t stay long. I got to get ready.’

  Inside the flat it smelled clean and warm and was very quiet. The passage from the front door led past the two bedrooms, one either side, and Hart noted that the door to Shannon’s was closed. Dakota strode into the living area at the end, shrugged her coat onto a stool at the kitchen counter, and went straight to the coffee machine, which was on. ‘Want some?’

  The coffee had been made long enough ago to lose any aroma. ‘No thanks,’ said Hart.

  Dakota poured a mug and carried it over to the French windows which gave onto a tiny balcony. She opened them and stuck a cigarette into her mouth. ‘You don’t mind if I smoke, do you?’ she asked indifferently.

  ‘S’your lungs, babe,’ said Hart. She could see Dakota was arranging her defences, but that was all right, because it suggested she had something to defend. ‘So where’s Shannon, then?’ she asked when the woman had taken her first drag.

  ‘She’s not here,’ Dakota exhaled.

  ‘I didn’t ask where she wasn’t.’

  ‘I mean, she’s moved out.’

  ‘Where to?’

  Dakota’s eyes shifted. ‘Look, what d’you want with her? I thought this was all over.’

  ‘What was all over?’

  ‘All the questioning. She told you lot what she knew, and you blew her off. Now you’re back again. Can’t you leave her alone?’

  ‘I just want to make sure she’s all right,’ Hart said genially.

  ‘She will be if you lot just sod off.’

  ‘Where is she, babe?’

  ‘I told you, she moved out.’

  ‘Why don’t I believe you?’

  Dakota rolled her eyes in an exasperation that appeared genuine. ‘Look, she was stopping with me, but there was police in and out all hours, hanging around outside, sniffing about, asking questions. It was affecting my business. I mean, people don’t want the filth looking over their shoulders when they’re on the job, do they? Shan’s a good kid, she didn’t want to ruin my life. So she went.’

  ‘Where did she go?’ Dakota didn’t answer, and Hart shifted a little closer and added a little menace. ‘Look, babe, you ain’t exactly on strong ground here. I don’t mind what you do for a living, but there’s others might. So I won’t ask again – where did Shannon go?’

  ‘She went up Auntie Hallie’s,’ she said sulkily.

  ‘Where’s that?’

  ‘She’s got a West Indian restaurant down Notting Hill. She said Shan could waitress. She’s gonna work there till she decides what to do.’

  ‘What’s the name of the restaurant?’

  ‘I’m not telling you,’ Dakota said, with a renewed rush of defiance. ‘You leave her alone. Haven’t you done enough?’

  ‘I told you, I just want to make sure she’s all right.’

  ‘She won’t be if you go barging in asking questions, showing her up. She’s trying to make a fresh start, all right?’

  Hart changed tack. ‘Can I have a look in her room?’

  ‘There’s nothing to see.’

  ‘Then you won’t mind me looking, will you?’ Hart said.

  Dakota hastily stubbed out her cigarette and followed her, but Hart had enough of a start to get the door open before Dakota could stop her. The room contained a single bed, wardrobe and chest of drawers which before had been crammed and crowded with Shannons’s effects. Now the cosmetics and other clutter was gone from the top of the chest, and the drawers and the wardrobe contained a few less favoured items of clothing and a lot of empty space. She had gone then, at least to the extent of taking her immediate requirements with her.

  ‘I know that restaurant,’ Hart said casually, pretending to examine the clothes in the wardrobe. ‘I’ve et there a coupla times. It’s not bad, the Jerk Shack.’

  ‘The Pepper Pot,’ Dakota corrected without thinking.

  Hart was ready with another question to distract her. ‘Did Shannon say anything about Jessica Bale? Her friend?’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Whether she was still seeing her. They were close, weren’t they? She was stopping with her before.’

  ‘I dunno. She’s not mentioned her in a while. Look, what are you after? Your lot questioned Jess as well as Shannon. You ought to know how she is. Why’re you asking me?’

  ‘Oh, this isn’t official,’ Hart said with a grin. ‘This is just me askin’, cos I’m a nice person.’

  Interestingly, a look of alarm crossed Dakota’s face, slightly beating a blush of annoyance to it. ‘I think you better go,’ she said, trying for dignity. It wasn’t far to the front door. ‘And don’t come back!’ she added as Hart opened it.

  Hart turned, out in the corridor. ‘You might not know it, babe, but I’m on your side. Remember that, if you find you need help.’

  ‘Yeah, real Samaritan,’ Dakota sneered, and closed the door.

  Dumb Dora, Hart thought affectionately as she trod down the stairs. She didn’t even realize she’d told her where Shannon was.

  NINE

  Downtown Addy

  Just before dawn a thick white fog came down, silencing the world, blocking out all sight. Slider stared out of the window at the faintly luminous whiteness. It was like being inside a ping-pong ball.

  Joanna was still asleep. As he walked along the passage he could hear George chatting quietly in his cot. In the mornings he liked to wile away the time until his day started up by telling himself stories, acting them out with his toys. Slider moved quietly until he could see into
the room, and watched for a moment as the cars and plastic marines bounced and jerked to the murmuring narrative. Then George sensed him, turned, and his face lit in a ravishing smile. Slider was one of the two people in the world he was happiest to see just then, and he knew how to show it.

  To provoke such utter bliss in another human being was beautiful and terrible. A pang of absolute love gripped Slider, making it for a moment hard to breathe. This intensity of feeling and minuteness of observation belonged to second families, were what made it worth while starting all over again in middle age. It was not that he had loved his other children less, but that life the first time around had not granted the space for such contemplation. Hours had been longer, money shorter, difficulties more pressing because he’d had less wisdom and experience to cope with them. Life had been one damn thing after another. Looking back, it felt as though he and Irene and the kids had been like four peas in a maraca, bouncing around in their preoccupations and only touching to collide.

  And of course he had not had the same sort of relationship with Irene: they had not been two halves of one whole, but ill-matched horses pulling a cart, out of step with each other. Irene had never understood the Job. To her, it was simply the way he made money for them to spend in their real life. It was where he went for annoyingly long hours, and from which he notably failed to mine sufficient money or status to compensate her for his absence. It wasn’t her fault. Few people who had not done it could understand, which was why the Job was littered with broken marriages.

  But Joanna was a musician, and she did understand, because it was the same for her. A musician always had to turn up. There was no calling in sick. You went even if you felt like death. There was no being late. There were no duvet days. There was no saying the hell with it and turning back because the traffic was impossible. There were no excuses. And there was no giving less than a hundred percent to the performance when you did arrive. You had to be there, and you had to be perfect.