Dear Departed

by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles

  ‘It’s such a long time since we did this,’ she said happily. ‘I don’t even remember when you last had a day off.’

  He had only known since May that Joanna was pregnant. She had given up her job with the orchestra in Amsterdam and was back home permanently, looking for work for the next few months. With the baby due in November, she could work until about the end of September – if she could get the dates. She’d had no luck so far. Still, it gave her a chance to look for a place for them to live. Her tiny flat had one bedroom, one sitting room, a small kitchen and a breathe-by-numbers bathroom – adequate for them but tight for them plus baby.

  Being an old-fashioned kind of a bloke, he was determined they should get married before the baby was born. And before they got married they had to announce everything to their respective families, something which work had made impossible for him. But now, with the debriefing and writing up of the Bates case done at last, he had two days off. Tomorrow he and Joanna were going to spend the day with his father – his only relly – and today they were going down to Eastbourne to see her parents. Slider had never yet met them, and was nervous.

  ‘What if they don’t like me?’ he asked.

  She was good at catching on. ‘They’ll like you. Why wouldn’t they?’

  ‘Debauching their daughter, for one. Getting you pregnant before marrying you.’

  ‘My sister Alison was born only six months after the Aged Ps married.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Mum mellowed one night when Sophie and I took her out for a drink for her birthday, and confessed. She was a bit shocked the next day when she remembered. She swore us to secrecy, so don’t say anything. Apparently the others don’t know.’

  ‘Except for Alison, presumably.’

  ‘I wouldn’t even be sure of that. She may not have put two and two together. She was always good at ignoring inconvenient facts.’

  Slider reached for the marmalade. ‘Tell me them again. I haven’t got them straight.’

  ‘Doesn’t matter. You aren’t going to meet them all.’

  ‘You know me. I like to do my homework.’

  ‘All right. Alison’s the eldest, then the three boys, Peter, Tim and George.’

  ‘They’re in Australia?’

  ‘No, only Tim and George. They all emigrated together but Peter came back.’

  ‘Oh, yes, I remember now.’

  ‘Then Louisa and Bobby, then me, then the twins that died, then Sophie.’

  ‘What a crowd. It must have been nice, growing up with so many people around you.’

  ‘I’m sure you got a lot more attention,’ said Joanna.

  ‘But you don’t have much backup when you’re an only child. No insurance. When Mum died there was only me and Dad, and when he goes …’

  She reached across and squeezed his hand. ‘You’ll still have a wife, an ex-wife and at least three children.’

  He began to smile. ‘At least? What are you trying to tell me?’

  She looked casual. ‘Oh, well, I just thought if you’re going to fork out all that money for a marriage licence, you might as well get your money’s worth.’

  He inspected her expression and was thinking they might go back to bed after all, when the phone rang. Joanna met his eyes. ‘Oh, no,’ she said, looking a question and a doubt.

  He felt a foreboding. ‘It couldn’t be. They wouldn’t. Not on my day off.’ But he knew they could and would. Detective inspectors had to be available for duty at all times, and since they didn’t get paid overtime it was easier on the budget to call them rather than someone who did.

  He got up and trudged out to the narrow hall (Never get a pram in here, he thought distractedly) and picked up the phone. It was Nicholls, one of the uniformed sergeants at Shepherd’s Bush police station. ‘Are you up and dressed?’

  ‘This had better be important,’ Slider growled.

  ‘Sorry, Bill. I know it’s your day off and I hate to do it to you, but it’s a murder.‘

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake!’

  ‘Came in on a 999 call. Female, stabbed to death in Paddenswick Park. Looks as though the Park Killer’s struck again.’

  ‘Why can’t Carver’s lot catch it?’

  ‘They’re knee deep in that drugs and prostitution ring. The boss says you’re it. I’m sorry, mate.’

  ‘Bloody Nora, can’t people leave off killing each other for two minutes together?’ Out of the corner of his eye he saw that Joanna had come out into the hall. At these words she turned away, and the cast of her shoulders was eloquent. All right, on my way.’

  Joanna was in the bedroom. She looked up when he came in and forestalled his speech. ‘I gathered.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

  ‘I know. Can’t be helped.’

  He could tell by her terseness that she was upset, and he didn’t blame her. ‘You’ll explain to your parents?’

  ‘Don’t worry about it.’

  ‘Will you still go?’

  ‘No point. I’ll call it off,’ she said shortly, passing him in the doorway.

  He rang Atherton – DS Jim Atherton, his bagman – and got him on his mobile at the scene.

  ‘You don’t need to hurry. Porson’s got everything under control.’

  ‘Hell’s bells. What’s he doing there?’

  ‘He was in the office when I arrived at a quarter to eight. I don’t think he’d been home.’

  Porson, their Det Sup, had recently been widowed. Slider wondered whether he was finding home without his wife hard to cope with.

  ‘The shout came in about a quarter past eight,’ Atherton went on, ‘and he grabbed the team and shot over here. He’s already whistled up extra uniform to take statements, and the SOCO van’s on the way.’

  ‘So what does he need me for?’ Slider asked resentfully.

  ‘I expect it’s lurve,’ Atherton said. ‘Gotta go – he’s beckoning.’

  So it was away with the cords and chambray shirt, hello workday suit and Teflon tie. Blast and damn, Slider thought. Any murder meant a period of intensive work and long hours, but a serial murderer could tie you down for months. If it was the Park Killer, there was no knowing when he’d get a day off again.

  The traffic had built up by the time Slider left the house, and he had plenty of leisure to reflect as he crawled along Bath Road. The Park Killer had ‘struck’ – as the newspapers liked to put it – twice before, but not on Slider’s ground. The first time had been in Gunnersbury Park, the second only a month ago in Acton Park. On that – admittedly meagre – basis it looked as though he was moving eastwards, which left room for a couple more possible incidents in Shepherd’s Bush before he reached Holland Park and became Notting Hill’s problem. Slider wondered what could be done to hasten that happy day. The very thought of a serial killer made him miserable. The idea that any human being could be so utterly self-absorbed that he would kill someone at random simply as a means of self-advertisement was deeply depressing.

  It was part, he thought, as he inched forward towards a traffic light that only stayed green for thirty seconds every five minutes, of the modern cult of celebrity. To get on the telly, to get in the papers, was the ultimate ambition for a wide swathe of the deeply stupid. And the newspapers didn’t help. This present bozo had killed two people, and already he had a media sobriquet. No wonder he had killed again so soon. He had a public to satisfy now. He was a performer.

  To be a celebrity act, of course, you had to have a trademark, and the Park Killer’s bag was to kill in broad daylight in a public place full of passers-by – people walking dogs, people going to work, people jogging, roller-blading, bicycling. The newspapers had been full of wonder (which the killer probably read as admiration) as to how he had managed not to be seen. Paddenswick Park fitted this MO. It lay between Goldhawk Road to the north and King Street to the south, and was not only a cut-through but was well used by the local population for matutinal exercise and dog-emptying. Morning rush hour was the PK’s t
ime of choice. If nothing else, Slider reflected, it slowed down the police trying to get to the scene.

  By the time he reached the area, he had plumbed the depths. To add to the stupid senselessness of every murder, in this case there would be all the problems involved in liaising with the Ealing squad – how they would enjoy having to share with him the fact that they had got nowhere! – not to mention dealing with the inevitable media circus. It looked as though it would be a close-run thing whether he would get to marry Joanna or draw his pension first.

  The park and a large section of Paddenswick Road, which ran down its east side, were cordoned off. Atherton was standing in the RV area behind the blue-and-white tape; he came over and moved it for Slider to drive through. Within the area were several marked police cars, Atherton’s and the department wheels and the large white van belonging to the scene-of-crime officers. Inside the park gates he could see that all the people who had been on the spot when the police arrived had been corralled, with a mixture of CID and uniform taking their basic details.

  Though Slider kept a low media profile, some of the reporters recognised him and shouted out to him from where they were being kept at bay beyond the cordon. They only had one question, of course. ‘Is it the Park Killer?’ ‘Do you think it’s the Park Killer?’ A nod from him and they’d dash off, click together their Lego stock phrases, and every paper and bulletin would have the same headline: PARK KILLER STRIKES AGAIN. Slider ignored them.

  ‘What it is to be a star,’ said Atherton.

  ‘Me or him?’ Slider asked suspiciously.

  ‘Me, of course,’ said Atherton. He was elegantly suited, as always, and his straight fair hair, which he wore cut short these days, had just the subtlest hint of a fashionable spikiness about it, making him look even more dangerous to women. That sort of subtlety you had to pay upwards of forty quid for. Slider, who had used the same back-street barber for twenty years and now paid a princely nine quid a go, felt shabby and rumpled beside him. With his height and slimness Atherton sometimes looked more like a male model than a policeman. He was also, however, looking distinctly underslept about the eyes.

  ‘On the tiles again last night?’ Slider enquired. ‘Let me see, it was that new PC, wasn’t it? Collins?’

  ‘Yvonne. She’s new to the area and doesn’t know anybody,’ Atherton said, with dignity. ‘I was just making friends.’

  ‘A wild night of friend-making really takes it out of you,’ Slider said.

  ‘Crabby this morning,’ Atherton observed. ‘Bad luck about your day off. McLaren’s gone in search of coffee and bacon sarnies,’ he added coaxingly.

  ‘I had breakfast,’ Slider said. ‘I still don’t know what I’m doing here, if Porson’s in charge.’

  ‘Looks as though you’re about to find out,’ said Atherton, gesturing with his head.

  Slider turned and caught Detective Superintendent Fred ‘The Syrup’ Porson’s eye on him across the little groups of coppers and witnesses. Porson was tall and bony and reared above the mass of humanity like a dolmen, his knobbly slap gleaming in the sun. It was still a shock to Slider to see old Syrup’s bald pate. He had earned his sobriquet through years of wearing a deeply unconvincing wig, but he had abandoned it the day his wife died. Slider was forced to the unlikely conclusion that it was Betty Porson (who had been quite an elegant little person) who had encouraged the sporting of the rug. The nickname had been in existence too long to die; now it had to be applied ironically.

  Slider liked Porson. He was a good policeman and a loyal senior, and if he used language like a man in boxing gloves trying to thread a needle, well, it was a small price to pay not to be commanded by a twenty-something career kangaroo with a degree in Applied Pillockry.

  The Syrup was signalling something with his eyebrows. Porson’s eyebrows were considerable growths. They could have declared UDI from the rest of his face and become a republic. Slider obeyed the summons.

  ‘Sorry about your day off,’ Porson said briefly. ‘I’ve got things initialated for you, but you’ll have to take over from here. I’ve got a Forward Strategy Planning Meeting at Hammersmith.’ His tone revealed what he thought of strategic planning meetings. These days, holding meetings seemed to be all the senior ranks did – hence, perhaps, old Syrup’s eagerness to sniff the gunpowder this morning. ‘Gallon was the first uniform on the spot – he’ll fill you in on the commensurate part. I’ve got people taking statements from everyone who was still here when we got here, and SOCO’s just gone in. All right?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Slider said. ‘But—’

  Porson raised a large, knuckly hand in anticipation of Slider’s objection. ‘A word in your shell-like,’ he said, turning aside. Slider turned with him, and Porson resumed, in a lower voice: ‘Look here, this might be the Park Killer or it might not. It could be, from the look of appearances, but I want it either way. The SCG’s had to send most of its personal to help out the Anti-terrorist Squad, so Peter Judson’s down to two men and a performing dog, and they’re up to their navels.’ The Serious Crime Group had first refusal of all murders. ‘So it’ll probably be left with us, at least for the present time being. If we can clear this one, it’s going to do us a lot of bon. Definite flower in our caps.’

  Slider wasn’t sure he wanted anything in his cap. ‘If it is a serial, there’s Ealing to consider,’ he said.

  Porson looked triumphant. ‘That’s the beauty of it. They’ve not managed to get anywhere with it. We get the gen from them, and we clear it, see? Who’s a pretty boy then?’ Something of Slider’s inner scepticism must have showed, because Porson lowered his voice even more, and practically climbed into his ear. ‘Look here,’ he said, ‘I’m not trying to blow sunshine up your skirt. The bottom end is that I’m being considered for promotion. I’ve not got long to go. If I can retire a rank higher it makes a big difference to my pension.’ His faded, red-rimmed eyes met Slider’s without flinching. ‘I’ve given my life to the Job. I think I deserve it.’ Slider thought so too, but it wasn’t his place to say so. ‘But you know as well as I do what flavour goes down with the upper escalons these days,’ Porson went on. ‘We’re not young and sexy. Dinosaurs, they call us, coppers like you and me. But a big-profile clear-up, that’s just an incontroversial fact. They can’t ignore that.’

  Slider noted that Porson didn’t say, ‘Do this for me and I’ll see you all right.’ He had always been loyal to his troops and simply assumed that they knew it. Slider admired him for it. So he waved goodbye to his time off and did not sigh. ‘I’ll do my best, sir,’ he said.

  ‘I know you will, laddie. I know you will.’ Porson was so moved he came within an inch of clapping Slider on the shoulder, changed the gesture at the last moment, tried to scratch his nonexistent wig, and ended up rubbing his nose vigorously, clearing his throat with a percussive violence that would have stunned a starling at ten paces.

  Slider decided to take advantage of the emotional moment. ‘Any chance you can get me a replacement for Anderson, sir?’ he asked. DC Anderson of Slider’s team had been snatched by the National Crime Squad on a long-term secondment, leaving him a warm body short.

  ‘I’ll see what I can do,’ Porson said, ‘but don’t hold your horses. You know what the situation is vis-à-vis recruitment.’

  Slider returned to Atherton. All right,’ he said, ‘tell me about it. Where’s the corpus, then?’

  ‘In the bushes,’ said Atherton.

  On the Paddenswick Road side, the park was bounded by a low wall topped with spiked iron railings, the whole combination about nine feet high. An iron gate let on to a wide concreted path, which ran straight for twenty feet and then branched to give north – south and east – west walks, plus a curving circumference route round the northern end of the park that was popular with runners. The whole park was pleasantly landscaped, mostly grassy with a few large trees and one or two formal flower-beds beside the paths, filled now with the tidy summer bedders beloved of municipal gardeners – bright red
geraniums, multicoloured pansies, edgings of blue and white lobelia and alyssum.

  It was all open space, not at all murderer territory, except for a stretch of vigorous shrubbery of rhododendrons, spotted laurels, winter viburnum and other such serviceable bushes, plus a few spindly trees of the birch and rowan sort. The shrubbery ran north to south, bordered on the east by the railings and on the west by the north – south path, which ran down to the gate opposite the tube station. And here, it seemed, among the sooty leaves, the murderer had lurked, and attacked.

  PC Gallon, as promised, filled Slider in.

  ‘It was a bloke walking his dog that found the body, sir, just after eight o’clock. A Mr Chapman, first name Michael, lives in Atwood Road?’ Gallon was young enough to have the routine Estuary Query at the end of his sentences, but in this case he wanted to know if Slider knew where that was. Slider nodded.

  ‘Well, he had his dog on one of those leads that reels out, and it went into the bushes there. He didn’t notice till the dog starts barking and making a hell of a fuss. So he tries to reel it in, but it won’t come, and he reckons the lead’s caught up on the bushes or something, so he goes in after it, and there she is.’

  ‘Was it him who phoned Emergency?’

  ‘No, sir. Chapman comes out of the bushes and stops the first person he sees, bloke called David Hatherley who’s walking through on his way to work, and he calls 999 on his mobile. Call was logged at eight twelve.’

  ‘All right. Let’s have a look,’ Slider said.

  Here, in this short stretch of path inside the gate and before the junction, the bushes grew close together, presenting an unbroken green wall of foliage. ‘Here’s where Chapman went in,’ said Atherton. And presumably where the killer dragged the victim in.’

  There were scuffmarks in the chipped bark mulch that had been spread under the shrubs to keep the weeds down. Some bark had spilled over onto the path, and there were two deep parallel grooves disappearing like tram lines into the shrubbery.