Blood Sinister

by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles

‘I ’spec’ so. He’s a reporter, works for the Ham and Ful,’ said Lorraine.

  The Hammersmith and Fulham Chronicle was a local paper, but with ambitions to be the next Manchester Guardian and go national. It took itself seriously, reported hard news, uncovered local council scandals, campaigned for the homeless and refugees, and hardly ever mentioned jumble sales or ‘amdram’ pantomimes.

  ‘So,’ said Atherton as they went downstairs again, ‘another newshound. Maybe that accounts for the rapid response.’

  ‘What, you think he was the reporter who rang the Commander? But how could he have known about it?’

  ‘Maybe he did it.’

  ‘Down, boy,’ said Slider.

  Back in the Agnew flat, the body had been taken away. The room was strangely lifeless, all colour gone with her. The tattiness was now merely depressing rather than defiant.

  ‘There’s a mess of stuff to be sorted through,’ Atherton said gloomily. ‘Why did she live in a place like this, anyway? I’d have thought she earned plenty.’

  ‘You heard from L’raine what a saint she was. Maybe she gave it all away to charity.’

  ‘And leapt tall buildings in a single bound,’ Atherton said. ‘No, I see her as one of those pathetic pseudo-intellectuals who leech on dimwits to give themselves a sense of superiority. Better to reign in hell, etcetera, etcetera.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Slider said. ‘With Candi up-atop and Peter the Bunny down under, I’d have thought Phoebe Agnew was the one being leeched on.’

  ‘Precisely my point,’ Atherton groused. ‘Why didn’t she stop slumming it and move somewhere else?’

  ‘Did you get a package of hostility through the post this morning? I thought you thought she was a brilliant writer.’

  ‘She was obviously a slob,’ Atherton said, watching the forensic team opening cupboards and drawers. The tidying had evidently been done student-style, by bundling up everything visible and stuffing it into hiding. ‘Why can’t we ever investigate someone with a minimalist lifestyle?’

  Slider had left his side and was talking to Bob Lamont, who had come in person to lift the fingerprints. ‘What’s it look like?’

  ‘Dabs everywhere. A real mess. She wasn’t houseproud,’ said Lamont. ‘I’ve done all the usual places – door, light switch and so on.’

  ‘Do the cutlery, wineglasses and bottles in the kitchen, will you,’ Slider said. ‘Working on the assumption it was the killer she cooked for—’

  ‘You don’t want much, do you?’ Lamont complained.

  ‘Have you done the CD covers?’

  ‘Just about to.’

  ‘Good. Maybe he put music on to kill by. Oh,’ he added, ‘and what about the flush-handle on the loo – that’s one they often forget.’

  ‘Shall be done.’

  Slider’s own troops were already starting to sort and bag papers from the areas that had been finished with. Atherton turned as he came back to him. ‘I suppose we’ve got to sort through all this lot to find the next of kin.’

  ‘No, you can ring one of the papers,’ Slider said. ‘They’re bound to have a morgue piece on her.’

  ‘Brilliant, boss.’

  ‘That’s me. Try the Independent first. Better not start off by suggesting to the Grauniad that they know more about the case than you do. And when you’ve done that, ring the Ham and Ful and find out where the downstairs tenant is.’

  ‘He’s probably somewhere giving himself an interview,’ Atherton said.

  Just as Slider was leaving, Lamont came back to him. ‘I think we may have something,’ he said. ‘The cutlery and glasses and so on in the kitchen, and the coffee cups and brandy glasses over there,’ he nodded towards the unit, ‘have all been wiped clean on the outside. But the whisky glasses have both got lip and finger marks on them. Now, assuming one set belongs to the deceased—’

  ‘Nice,’ Slider said, brightening. ‘They always make one mistake.’

  CHAPTER THREE

  Three corns on a Fonteyn

  WDC Swilley burst into Slider’s office. ‘Boss?’

  ‘Don’t you believe in knocking?’ he said sternly.

  ‘No, only constructive criticism,’ she said.

  ‘Don’t you start. One smartarse in the firm’s enough,’ he warned. ‘I hope you’ve come to bring me a cup of tea?’

  She shook her head. ‘Sorry. There’s a bloke here from the local paper.’

  He frowned. ‘Why are you telling me? You know I don’t talk to the press.’

  ‘No, boss, but he says he’s got information about Phoebe Agnew. His name’s Peter Medmenham.’

  ‘That’s the man who lives in the basement of her house,’ Slider said. ‘Concentrate, Norma!’

  ‘Oh, yes. Sorry.’ She’d been distracted lately. Her longstanding engagement to the mysterious Tony was at last nearing fruition: at the Christmas party (which, typically, Tony did not attend) she had announced the date for the wedding.

  The announcement had set the department seething, because nobody had ever met Tony, and the uncharitable had claimed he didn’t exist. Norma was tall, leggy, blonde and glamorous, so the idea that she was a saddo who had to invent a love-interest ought to have been ludicrous; but policewomen who reject the advances of their colleagues have to take what gets dished out. Those she had scorned most cruelly had labelled her a lesbian (and probably fantasised about her in studded leather wielding a whip). Now the same thickheads were saying she was getting married because she was in pod: spite and wounded pride took no account of logic, of course. But even Slider had to admit to a curiosity about what sort of magnificent demigod Tony must be to have captured his firm’s own warrior princess.

  ‘So, d’you want to see him?’ Norma asked. ‘He’s downstairs, in interview room one.’

  ‘Eh?’ Slider said, startled.

  ‘This Meddlingham bloke.’

  ‘Oh! Yes, I suppose I’d better. Is he alone? He hasn’t got a photographer with him?’

  She grinned. ‘You’re safe. He’s not even sporting a notepad.’

  Peter Medmenham was not at all what Slider had expected. A reporter for a local paper he would have expected to be young and poor; and the name somehow suggested tall and handsome, in the manner of a model in a men’s knitwear catalogue. But what he found in the interview room was a short, plump person of indeterminate age, wearing cord trousers in a silvery-olive shade with a lovat-green lambswool sweater. A tweed overcoat, of the venerable wonderfulness that put it in the loved-family-retainer class, hung from his shoulders. His soft face sported a tan which, in the unforgiving fluorescent light, looked fake, and his pale blue eyes were rimmed with lashes so dark they must surely have been helped, especially as the sparse, carefully tended hair was white – or, to be absolutely frank, pale blue. As Slider paused in the doorway, Medmenham opened his eyes wide and made a little theatrical movement of his hands, first out and then to his chest.

  ‘Oh, don’t!’ he cried in a surprisingly deep, cigarette-husky voice. ‘I know! You’re looking at this!’ He touched his head. ‘It’s a disaster! Just enhance the white, I said – because when all you’ve got is a few poor little bits and pieces like mine, you’ve got to make the most of them – and, lo and behold, out I come, looking like the Blue Fairy in Pinocchio! Believe me, this is nothing to what it was like when she first did it. Kylie – that’s the girl’s name, don’t ask me why – said it would wash out, and it is doing but, my God! Serves me right for going to a unisex salon, I suppose. That’s a bad joke, and so was the salon.’

  ‘Mr Medmenham?’ Slider asked mildly.

  ‘Yes, and listen to me running on! It’s nerves, that’s all. Do you mind if I sit down? My poor feet are killing me. What I suffer with them is nobody’s business! Of course, these shoes don’t help – but you can’t argue with vanity, can you?’ He had a refined accent, and behind the mascara, his eyes were alert and intelligent. ‘You’re Inspector Slider, are you?’

  ‘Yes, that’s right. And this is Detec
tive Constable Swilley.’

  Medmenham sat gracefully, slipping the coat off over the back of the chair in the same movement, and flashed a very white smile at Norma. ‘How d’you do? My goodness, you look much too glamorous to be a policewoman! Did you ever think of going on the boards, dear? You really should, you’ve got the legs for it. Mind you, your feet wouldn’t thank me. I used to dance, as well, though you wouldn’t think it to look at me now. No Fred Astaire, but I was a decent hoofer in my time. It’s all I can do to take three steps now. My trouble always was, my feet were too small for my weight. Put too much strain on them. If I were to show you, it would make you weep, I give you my word.’

  Slider sat opposite him and tried to fix his attention. ‘I understand you’ve got something to tell me about Phoebe Agnew.’

  ‘Well, not exactly, but I thought you’d be sure to want to speak to me, as we were so close, so I came straight here as soon as I heard about it.’ The blue eyes wavered swimmingly. ‘I suppose it is true? There’s no mistake?’

  ‘I’m afraid not. How did you hear about it?’ Slider asked.

  ‘I picked up a Standard at the station, and there it was – just a paragraph at the bottom of the front page. It didn’t give her name, just said a well-known journalist had been found dead in a flat in West London, but, call me Mystic Meg, I just had an awful premonition about it. So I went straight to the nearest telephone and called the Ham and Ful news desk, and of course they knew all about it. One of our own had been first on the scene. My God, what a way to find out! I thought I was going to faint, right there in the railway station. I’m still not feeling quite myself.’

  ‘It must have been a shock,’ Slider said kindly. The unnatural-looking tan, he had discovered, was make-up after all. Medmenham might well be pale under it: he certainly had a look of strain.

  ‘It was,’ he said. ‘To tell you the truth, that’s another reason I came straight here. I didn’t want to go home. Is that silly of me?’ He gave a little nervous laugh.

  ‘Understandable,’ Slider said.

  ‘I’m not sure if I’ll ever want to go back there again. She – she isn’t still there, is she?’

  ‘No. The body’s been removed.’

  ‘The body! Oh dear!’ His lips began to tremble and his face threatened to collapse, but he said, ‘No, I must stay calm. Can’t blub in front of the police.’ He drew out a handkerchief from his trouser pocket and carefully applied it to his eyes and lips. ‘And I want to help,’ he added, emerging. ‘Poor, darling Phoebe! Who could have done such a thing?’

  ‘Your editor said you weren’t at work today,’ Slider said.

  ‘My editor? You mean Martin? He doesn’t edit me, love,’ Medmenham said with sudden vigour. ‘Barely literate, like most of the staff, but then that’s the progressive education system for you. Gender awareness and finger-painting, oh yes, but reading and writing – oubliez le! And as for grammar—’

  ‘But I understood you were a reporter for the Ham and Ful?’

  He looked shocked. ‘Oh, not a reporter! I do the reviews. Books, theatre, TV. And the interviews and articles – everything on the arts side. Not the music scene – that’s very different. Very cliquey. I don’t have the in. But I’m virtually the arts editor, otherwise. I used to be on the stage, of course, so I’ve got the contacts. I come from a long line of theatricals. My parents were in variety. I first went on as a Babe in the Wood at the age of six. Golden curls I had then, if you’ll believe me! I’ve done a bit of everything. From panto to musicals, Shakespeare to Whitehall farce. But I went over to the writing side when my feet let me down. It’s not only that I can’t dance any more, I just couldn’t stand on stage for three hours every night. You wouldn’t believe how it takes it out on the feet, acting. It’s not a thing anyone talks about, really.’

  ‘Tell me how you first met Phoebe Agnew,’ Slider said.

  ‘Ooh, that would be – let me think – thirteen, fourteen years ago. Nineteen eighty-five, was it? Back when dinosaurs ruled the earth! My lord, doesn’t the tempus fuge when you take your eye off it? Time flies like an arrow – but fruit flies like a banana, as they say! Anyway, I met Phoebe at a Labour fund-raiser. Well, there’s always been a lot of interplay between politics and the theatre. The luvvie connection. I think a lot of politicians are actors manque´, don’t you? Especially our present lords and masters – but never mind, that’s another story. I could tell you some things but I won’t. And the other way round, of course – a lot of actors fancy themselves politicians. I could name names, but nobody loves a gossip.’ He pursed his lips and turned an imaginary key over them.

  ‘So how did you come to live in the same house?’ Slider pursued.

  ‘Well, when I met her at this do, she was looking for somewhere, and the flat upstairs happened to be empty. She and I took to each other first minute, we were like brother and sister, so I jumped at the chance of having a soul mate upstairs and she jumped at the chance of a nice let that was cheap and central.’ He sighed. ‘If we’d known then what property prices were going to do! We had the chance to buy, and at a price that would make you laugh if I told you it now, but the rent was so reasonable, and neither of us had any dependents, so it hardly seemed worth it. We were quite happy to go on renting. But we were sitting on a gold-mine, if we had but known it. Of course, Sborski would love to get us out now, he could get a fortune selling the flats, but I’ve been there so long I’m a protected tenant, and it wasn’t worth selling the top flat alone. I suppose,’ he added starkly, his verve dissipating for a moment, ‘now Phoebe’s gone, he might sell the rest of the house and just leave me all alone in my basement. Oh, poor me!’

  ‘You’re not married?’

  ‘No, I always look like this! Jokette,’ he explained, looking round with a pleased smile. ‘No, seriously, I should have thought it was obvious I’m not the marrying kind.’

  ‘I don’t like to assume anything,’ Slider said solemnly. ‘So you and Phoebe were close, were you?’

  ‘She was my best, best friend. She was a wonderful person. She lived her principles, and there’s not many you can say that about. Most people just talk about issues, but she got up and did something about it. Mind you, we didn’t always agree. I mean, there is such a thing as being too liberal. Everything’s so upfront and in-your-face these days. I’ve never made any secret about what I am – where’d be the point? You’ve only got to look at me – but my generation didn’t make a song and dance about it. We kept ourselves to ourselves – and the Brigade of Guards. No, naughty! I didn’t say that!’ He twinkled. ‘But nowadays everybody seems to want to tell everybody everything, whether they want to know it or not. And then, some of Phoebe’s lame ducks weren’t as lame as they made out, if you ask me. I know a thing or two about persecution, believe you me, and if they were victims I’m the Queen of Sheba’s left tittie! Those two awful men she got let off, who murdered those kiddies. Oh, there might have been some doubt about the evidence, but they did it all right, and as far as I was concerned they were in the right place. Well, we argued about that a few times, I can tell you. But you couldn’t fault her in the intentions department. She was all heart, Phoebe. When they made her they broke the mould.’ His eyes swam again, and he reapplied the handkerchief, sniffing delicately.

  Slider nodded sympathetically. ‘Have you any idea who might have wanted to hurt her?’

  He shook his head gravely. ‘No, not at all. She didn’t have any personal enemies. She was too good and kind. I suppose some people in authority mightn’t have liked her – she did rather stir up things that some might have preferred unstirred – but you don’t murder someone for that, do you? Well, not in this country. No, I can only think it was one of those random attacks. I mean, there are so many drug addicts and nutters on the loose nowadays, aren’t there? Why they ever shut the bins and threw the poor things out on the street I’ll never know! Call me an old softie, but they were much better off locked up inside, being looked after.’

 
; Slider thought Medmenham had got into his stride and was playing to his audience, hearing himself and enjoying the flow of words. It was time to bring him down a bit.

  ‘So, tell me, why weren’t you at work today?’

  ‘Oh,’ he said, almost as if he’d been slapped. ‘Well, that’s a straight question if ever I heard one! I had the day off, as it happens. I went to see my mother. She’s not been very well recently.’

  ‘And where does she live?’

  ‘In Danbury. It’s near Chelmsford.’

  ‘Yes, I know where it is,’ Slider said.

  ‘You do?’ Peter Medmenham seemed very interested in that.

  Slider said merely, ‘I’m an Essex boy myself. You went down this morning?’

  There was a very slight hesitation. ‘No, last night.’

  ‘By car? You drove down?’

  ‘No, I don’t drive, actually. Never got round to learning – well, I’ve always lived in London, so there didn’t seem much point. I took the train. Stayed overnight. Took the Aged Mum out to lunch today, bless her – she loves eating out – and got the train back straight afterwards. I had to hurry to catch it, so I didn’t see a paper until I got to Liverpool Street. That’s when I saw the bit about Phoebe, and I came straight here.’

  ‘What time did you go out last night?’ Slider asked.

  He seemed put out by the question. ‘Me? Last night? Why do you want to know?’

  ‘Have you some reason not to tell me?’ Slider countered pleasantly.

  ‘No, of course not. Why should I? Well, if it’s important to you, I left at eight. I wanted to catch the 9.02 from Liverpool Street, and I always leave myself plenty of time to catch trains. With my blessed feet, I can’t afford to have to run for one.’ He looked enquiringly at Slider as if for a quid pro quo.

  Slider said, ‘It seems that Phoebe Agnew had a visitor yesterday. I don’t suppose you saw them arrive or leave, did you?’

  Medmenham chose to take that as the reason for the previous question, and his face cleared. ‘Oh, I see! Well, I didn’t see him, but I know who it was. It was Josh Prentiss.’