‘Oh, good grief!’ Porson cried. ‘I’m not hearing this. I am not hearing this. You mean to tell me that after a week on the case all you’ve done is clear the prime suspect? You’ve upset the Home Secretary – and the PM himself – for no reason? What am I going to tell the press conference? What am I going to tell Mr Wetherspoon? He’ll have my balls for garters. And who’s going to tell Prentiss?’
He stamped about and raged for a while, and Slider bent his head and bore it patiently. He didn’t blame The Syrup. He was up at the sharp end when it came to censure, and would have to explain it all to a hostile news media gathering. Slider wouldn’t have liked to be in his shoes and under those lights.
When he calmed down a bit, Porson sat down – unusually for him – behind his desk, and said, ‘So where does it leave you? What have you got left to follow up?’
‘There’s Wordley, sir. McLaren’s still looking into him. But we’ve got nothing on him, except that he’s got a record, and that he’s been missing since Wednesday night. And there’s a mass of reports on people seen in the street and going in and out of houses. We’ve been working our way through them. Most of them will be nothing to do with the case, as always, but we may still turn up something. There are Agnew’s papers, still being sorted. Something may turn up there. And we’ve got the team going over her major articles and campaigns, trying to find if there was a conflict of some kind that may have come back on her.’
‘In other words,’ Porson grunted, ‘you’re back at numero uno.’
‘There’s still the possibility’, Slider said, ‘that it was a random killing. Someone just broke in – the lock’s easy to slip – and killed her for the hell of it.’
Porson looked at him sharply. ‘But you don’t think so?’
‘It doesn’t smell like that to me.’
‘Nor to me,’ said Porson.
‘I mean, why would they tie her up like that afterwards – unless it was a joke?’
‘The tying up aspect of the scenario is what puzzles me most,’ Porson admitted. ‘No record of those extra fingerprints anywhere, I suppose?’
‘Nothing.’
Porson sighed. ‘You’ll just have to plod it out, then.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘You realise, don’t you, that Prentiss will probably sue us for destroying his career?’
Slider braved it out. ‘I was just doing my job, sir.’
Porson shrugged. ‘Best thing you can do is get your head down and get a result, double quick time. Meanwhile,’ he stood up, the gloom intensifying on his granite crag, ‘my unenviable task is to go and face the cerebos of the press.’
It turned out to be a long day. Prentiss – who in reason ought to have been pleased to be cleared – was not a happy bunny when the news was broken to him, and Commander Wetherspoon was not thrilled to have to be the one to break it. Telephone calls, press briefings, urgent conferences and carpetings followed. Slider was glad to have the bulk of Porson to cower behind. He was a funny old duck, but he stood by his men.
Slider was just putting things away, about to go home, when McLaren came in.
‘Guv—’
‘You still here? There’s no overtime tonight, you know.’
‘No, I been out talking to my snout,’ McLaren said.
‘You’re a bleeding contortionist, you are.’
McLaren took it phlegmatically. ‘He’s got a line on the bloke Wordley went off with on Wednesday night. He reckons the description fits a geezer name of Tucker, Sean Tucker. Ex-bouncer. You know the sort, out-of-work Milk Tray man, all muscles and black roll-necks. Used to work down the Nineteen Club in Warwick Road – I busted him a few times when I was at Kensington.’
‘He’s got previous, then?’
‘More form than a Miss World contest. Tasty as they come. Got sacked from the Nineteen for violent affray, and he’s into serious naughties now. Nicked over at Notting Hill a while back for conspiracy to murder, but the CPS gave it away. Anyway, word on the street is him and Wordley’s mixed up in something big.’
‘Planning a robbery?’
‘No, guv,’ McLaren said with satisfaction. ‘My snout says the word is they’ve done a murder.’
‘Any word on who?’
‘No, that’s all he said, that Tucker and Wordley are mixed up in a murder.’ He eyed Slider hopefully.
‘It’s a lead,’ Slider acknowledged, ‘but I’ve got reservations. Why would Wordley involve Tucker? It wasn’t a two-man job.’
‘Maybe he didn’t know that,’ McLaren said. ‘She was a strong old doris, and gutsy. She could’ve put up a fight.’
‘Faking the rape doesn’t look right for Wordley.’
‘He’s thick enough to think it might help. And Tucker’s always been a clever bastard. No, I can see him thinking it up, and laughing while Wordley does it. What about going round Tucker’s gaff and giving him a tug? He lives over North End Road. Tucker’s a toe-rag, he never minds shopping his oppos to clear himself. If we rough him a bit, he might drop us Wordley.’
‘Well, it never hurts to roust them, I suppose,’ Slider said. ‘And he might at least know where Wordley is. I’ll put it to Mr Porson tomorrow.’
‘Tomorrow?’
‘It’s no good pouting at me, I told you there’s no overtime tonight. Anyway, Mr Porson’s gone home, and my voice is the last one he’ll want to hear until he’s had a good night’s sleep. I’ll speak to him in the morning and if he authorises the manpower we’ll see about bringing Tucker in.’
‘I was just gonna go on my own,’ McLaren protested. ‘Have a little chat.’
‘Haven’t you read the new Health and Safety guidelines? A trained officer is an expensive piece of equipment and you can’t just chuck it into a situation without assessing the risk. More than any mother, the Metropolitan Police doesn’t want your face altered. Tucker could be dangerous, and you’re not going to roust him alone, and that’s final.’
McLaren subsided into resentful mumbles. ‘I go all out to get this red-hot lead—’
‘Tucker will keep,’ Slider said. ‘If Mr Porson rolls for it, and the budget’ll stand it, we’ll have a go at him tomorrow.’
As a counter-irritant, trying to find a parking space in Chiswick was up there with the greats. Slider’s first words as he came through the door were, ‘If I have to park much further away, I might as well leave the car and walk to work.’
‘Hello,’ said Joanna, coming out into the passage. Her woebegone face reminded him of the situation he had left behind, and that living in Chiswick might soon be a thing of the past anyway. They looked at each other for a moment, and then he held out his arms and she walked into them.
He rested his weary chin on the top of her head and sought for something tender to say. ‘What’s for supper?’
‘Sausage and mash,’ she said, in the tone a farmer’s wife might use to say, ‘The cow’s got mastitis, the hens are off lay and the goat’s eaten your trousers.’
‘I like sausage and mash,’ he said, kissing her ear. ‘Especially with fried onions.’
‘There are onions,’ she conceded. He nudged her face round and kissed her mouth. He had only meant to kiss, but he felt that instant arousal at the touch of her that still surprised as much as it delighted him. His love of her was so continuously, satisfyingly physical. He just wanted to be having her all the time. What was it about her, anyway? Why wasn’t she followed everywhere by a pack of stumbling, drooling, lust-dazed men? Maybe it wasn’t her, maybe it was them. The thought pleased him. There was a nice, kismet symmetry to it; a jigsaw-puzzle satisfaction. Slot their two pieces together and, lo, a bit of God’s big picture emerged.
As he had continued kissing her while having these thoughts, the matter had now become urgent, so he started walking her backwards towards the bedroom, shedding his coat and jacket as he went.
Some time later he had a long, groaning stretch and said, ‘Ah, that’s better than sinking into a hot bath when you get back from w
ork.’
‘Gee, thanks,’ she said, sitting up and pushing the hair out of her eyes. Some of the strain had gone from her face, so evidently it had worked for her as well. ‘You can have one of those too, if you like.’
‘I’m too hungry to wait that long. A quick shower will do.’
‘All right, I’ll go and put the potatoes on.’ At the door she turned back and said, ‘I suppose, man-like, you think that changes everything.’
‘It did for me,’ he said. ‘Altered my profile, anyway.’
She grinned unwillingly. ‘Rude,’ she said, and disappeared.
When they finally sat at the table in the bay window of her sitting-room, a bottle of Côtes du Rhône had joined them, and was making itself agreeable all round. While they ate, he told her about the day’s developments, and she listened in silence, not throwing herself into it as she usually did. When food and conversation both came to an end and they were left with only the last half glass of wine, she said, ‘The problem hasn’t gone away.’
‘I know,’ he said.
‘I’ve just been going over and over it all day,’ she said, ‘and I can’t see a way round.’ She looked at him anxiously. ‘I’m reminded again that now your divorce is through you’re a free man.’
He didn’t pretend not to understand her. ‘After the proofs of love I’ve just given you?’
‘Hot sex, agreeable though it is, doesn’t necessarily mean lifelong commitment.’
‘I was referring to eating your sausage and mash,’ he said. And then, suppressing a self-conscious smirk, ‘Was it really hot?’
‘The earth’, she assured him solemnly, ‘outmoved a Travelodge vibrating bed.’ And then she tacked off in her disconcerting way. ‘It’s always struck me as risky, having those things in California. All over the state, people must be missing earthquakes.’
‘I’ve never been to California,’ he said. ‘Or anywhere in America. I’m just a home-body.’
‘Which brings us neatly to the point. How’s that for a link?’ she said without pleasure. ‘Bill, what are we going to do?’
‘I love you,’ he said. ‘I know that’s not an answer, but I thought I’d mention it.’
And she looked sad. ‘That sounds like the sort of thing people say just before they split up.’
‘I would never leave you,’ he said.
‘Which just throws it back on me. It’s not fair. Why should I have to choose between my career and my man?’
‘I’m not asking you to.’
‘Yes you are. Implicitly.’
‘Well, it’s what you’re asking me,’ he said fairly.
‘And you won’t even consider it.’
How had they got back here so quickly? ‘It’s not that I won’t consider it, it’s that I don’t see how it’s possible.’
‘It may be impossible for you to be a policeman in Holland – I have to accept your word for that because I don’t know – but you could do something else.’
‘Petrol pump attendant? Road sweeper?’
She glared at him, the rage of the trapped animal. ‘If I stay, the same fate awaits me – or doesn’t that prospect bother you? Probably not. There’s a streak of the old-fashioned male in you that thinks a woman’s job is less important than a man’s. I suppose all men think like that, underneath. It’s just the little woman amusing herself – harmless as long as the housework gets done.’
‘Did I say that?’ he protested, but mildly. He knew the rage was not really directed at him, but at the situation.
‘No, but it’s there all the same, the attitude. It’s what you think even if you’re not aware of it.’
‘Like institutional racism?’
That made her pause. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘That was unfair. But, Bill, I’m good at what I do! And what I do is me. If I stop playing the fiddle and get a job as a checkout girl—’
‘But that isn’t the option that’s on offer, is it?’ he said carefully. ‘If you stay, you’ll still play. You may have to take another job as well, to make ends meet, but you won’t have to give up playing altogether.’
She stared. ‘You have made up your mind.’
‘No, I haven’t, but—’
‘I want this job! It’s important. It’s a fabulous opportunity for me, don’t you understand? It’s like – oh, I don’t know – you being offered Assistant Commissioner or whatever.’
‘But I don’t want promotion. I just want to go on doing what I’m doing. I’m good at it. And what I do is me, too.’
She turned her face away miserably, twiddling the stem of her glass. ‘I just can’t see a way out.’
‘I don’t want us to part,’ he said after a moment. ‘The thought of being without you is – well – I don’t know. I don’t want to face it.’ Inside his head the words flowed, powerful and passionate, but, man-like, all he could get out through his tight lips were crude wooden effigies of meaning. ‘Don’t try and make a decision now. Let’s both think and try and find a solution.’
‘I can’t hold off for long,’ she said. ‘Wolfie’s going to want an answer.’
‘All right, but please, let’s try and think of a way round it,’ he pleaded.
She shrugged, which meant she’d try, but she didn’t know what else there was to think. For that matter, neither did he. The realisation that he could lose her – or rather that they could lose each other – proved to him how strongly he had taken root in her. He felt shaken, loosened, likely to go over in the next strong wind. And yet, what solution was there? His foolish jealousies of the past, when he thought she might run off with another man, would have been a pleasure now, compared with the pain of this real dilemma.
He was disturbed mid-evening by a telephone call.
‘That’s my mobile,’ he said. ‘It must be work.’
Joanna, curled in the corner of the big, shabby leather chesterfield, staring at the television, grunted but didn’t stir. On the screen a weather girl with straggly hair and wearing one of those Suzanne Charlton over-the-bum jackets (did they draw from a common wardrobe, like nuns?) was saying, ‘. . . but the watter wather will at least bring some warmer temchers, tickly in the wast.’ Come back, Michael Fish, he thought. We forgive you the hurricane for the sake of your diction. Restore some ‘e’s to our forecasts.
He went out into the hall and stood by the front door, where the signal was better, to answer. The sepulchral tones of Tidy Barnet smote his ear. If a smoked haddock could speak, he’d sound like Tidy.
‘’Ullo, Mr S. That diction’ry bloke you was asking about, right?’
That would be Michael Wordley. Tidy, one of Slider’s best snouts, had a way of avoiding using names. Telephones – particularly mobiles – were not secure, and his life was perilous enough as it was.
‘I’m with you,’ Slider said.
‘You never warned me you ’ad anuvver bloke askin’ questions,’ Tidy said sourly. ‘Tripped over ’im, didn’t I?’
That would be McLaren’s snout, presumably. ‘I didn’t know. One of my men had an idea and put the word out.’
‘Yeah, I know ’im. The stupid one.’
‘I wouldn’t say that.’
‘Useless as a chocklit fireman. His snout’s a useless bastard an’ all. Wouldn’t know if you was up ’im wiv an armful o’chairs.’ Tidy sounded unusually irritable.
‘Sorry if it crossed your lines. My man’s snout said dictionary man was involved in a murder.’
‘Murder? That ain’t what I ’eard,’ said Tidy. ‘Diction’ry went off Wensdy night wiv a certain party, call ’im Little Tommy, right?’
That would be Tucker. At least McLaren’s snout got something right. ‘Yes, I know who you mean.’
‘Well, they’re plannin’ a bit o’ biz between ’em. Goin’ to turn over this rich tart’s gaff, right? They was doing the clubs and boozers all Wensdy night, went ’ome well pissed Fursdy morning. Little Tommy’s telling everyone he meets, the moufy div. Dictionr’y’s not ’appy wiv ’im. They �
��ad a row in Paddy’s club in Fulham Palace Road about two o’clock.’
‘Went home where?’
‘Little Tommy’s gaff. He lives wiv his mum down North End Road.’
‘When was the job supposed to be done?’
‘Fursdy,’ said Tidy. ‘They must a done it all right, ’cos I ’eard there was a lot o’ tom come on the market sudden. More’n that I can’t tell you.’
‘Well, thanks,’ said Slider. ‘You’ve done a great job. If you can get anything on where the job was or what they did before and afterwards, I’d be grateful.’
‘Yeah, I’ll keep me ear out.’
‘That other thing I asked you about?’
Tidy chuckled. ‘Yeah, that’s a queer one. Well, it ain’t my field, but I laid it off on another bloke, and he’ll give you a bell when ’e knows, right? Name o’ Banks. Harry Banks, but they calls ’im Piggy.’
Slider was shocked. ‘You never use names!’
‘Yeah, well, ’e ain’t in the business, is ’e? Got nothink to fear from Piggy Banks.’
Slider returned to Joanna. ‘Trouble?’ she asked.
‘That was Tidy Barnet,’ he said. ‘I’m now expecting a call from a man called Piggy Banks.’
‘Your life’s one long episode of The Magic Roundabout, isn’t it?’ Joanna said.
After the disappointment over Josh Prentiss, Commander Wetherspoon was only too pleased to jump at Tucker, and being of the generation that loved kicking down doors and shouting, ‘Go, go, go!’ he recommended the Syrup to arrange a visit to the Tucker demesne on Friday. It proved unfruitful. Mrs Tucker,a phlegmatic, respectable but deeply stupid woman, was found in sole possession. She opened the door to them without waiting for them to kick it in, and confirmed quite willingly that Seanie had come home with Micky Wordley in the early hours of last Thursday morning, both of them a bit pickled. Micky had slept on the sofa. They had got up about one o’clock Thursday afternoon and Mrs Tucker had got them breakfast, a big fry-up, which was what Seanie liked when he’d been out drinking the night before. They’d sat about afterwards having a smoke and a chat, and they’d gone off about three o’clock, saying they were going down the club. No, they hadn’t said which club, but Seanie liked the Shamrock in Hammersmith now he was banned from the Nineteen. And she hadn’t seen them since.
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