Blood Lines

by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles

  Slider obeyed, while Miss Giles picked her way through the cluttered kitchen and opened a coat-infested door at the other side, whereupon two small, hairy projectiles shot out between her feet and hurled themselves round the room like wall-of-death riders, making frantic love to each pair of legs as they passed them. After a moment they slowed down enough to resolve themselves into two grey schnauzers with very short haircuts and muscle-packed bodies who, for some reason, seemed to Slider to reinforce the view that people choose dogs that look like themselves.

  ‘Loonies,’ Miss Giles said affectionately, shoving the nearest one with her foot. ‘You’d think they’d been locked in there for days instead of minutes. Now, tea. Where did I put the teapot? Oh, wait, I remember, it’s got flowers in it, in the other room.’ She smiled engagingly. ‘I was sent rather a large bunch a few days ago, and had to press every vessel into service. Never mind, it’s teabags anyway. Do you mind my being terribly vulgar and making it in the cup?’

  ‘Not at all,’ Slider said. ‘Was it your birthday?’

  ‘Good lord, how did you—? Oh, the flowers, you mean! Yes, my birthday, though at my age it would be more seemly to stop having them. But Steve always remembers, bless him. He’s a good boy.’

  ‘Have you—?’

  ‘Do you want a cup or a mug?’ she overrode him. ‘The cups are rather twincey, you get more if you don’t mind a mug. And how do you take it? Milk, sugar?’

  ‘No sugar, thanks.’

  ‘Right. We’ll stay in here, if you don’t mind. The other room is such a tip. Sit down, boys. No, no, we’re not going out. Go and sit down. Basket!’ She smiled through the steam. ‘It always made me laugh when people shouted “Basket” at their dog. I started doing it as a joke, but of course they don’t know any better. It works, though – a nice, sharp-edged, distinguishable word.’ The two little dogs had certainly obeyed her, and were sitting side by side in the large, old-fashioned wicker basket by the back door. The kitchen was unreconstructed fifties, with a wooden table and chairs, a grey enamel gas stove, a porcelain sink, and a wooden cupboard with an enamel top for a work surface. The only modern thing in the room was a gleamingly large portable radio/tape recorder – what they used to call a Brixton Briefcase because the West Indian boys always carried them – in the corner from which music and voices were issuing quietly. After a moment Slider identified it as probably a Mozart opera, and felt proud of himself. Apart from the books, clothes, newspapers and personal clutter washing about the room like a landlocked tide, everything was in pristine condition. Slider wondered if it had been like this when Mills visited as a child.

  ‘Have you lived here very long?’ he asked while she paused for breath.

  ‘Thirty years. I must have been one of the first single women on earth to get a mortgage on my own salary, and even then I had to get a special recommendation from my boss to the building society. They assumed all women were going to marry and get pregnant, as night follows day. I’ve often wondered what he told them,’ she grinned. ‘Maybe that no-one would have me on a bet.’

  ‘So it was here that Mills – Steve – used to visit you as a child?’

  ‘Yes. Well, they lived just round the corner in Oaklands Grove.’

  ‘Is that why you bought the house? I mean, bought it here rather than somewhere else?’

  ‘Property was cheap here at the time,’ she answered, and he thought there was something about that which was slightly less straightforward than her previous deliveries. She dealt with the teabags before she spoke again. ‘I didn’t mind living nearby. I didn’t see much of Maggie and her husband, but it was nice to have Steve popping in. I suppose he’s told you I was very fond of him as a boy?’

  ‘He spoke very warmly of you,’ Slider said. ‘He said you took him to cricket matches and the opera.’

  She laughed, and he saw that she must have been attractive in her youth, though probably overpowering even then. ‘I had to do something to counteract the football culture. Arthur – his dad – used to take him to see QPR play most Saturdays in winter. His idea was to make Steve as ordinary as possible, as much like himself and everybody else as he could. Whereas I wanted him to be as individual as possible. I could see the boy had great potential. I introduced him to a wider set of horizons. I hoped he might be musical – my mother played the piano very well, and Father sang apparently. I didn’t want Steve growing up thinking football and the Methodist Church was all there was in life.’

  ‘How did his father like that?’

  She looked at him sharply, and set his tea down with rather more of a bang than was strictly necessary. ‘You mean his dad? You don’t expect people like Arthur to appreciate other people’s points of view. Their minds run on rails. Anything at all different from their experience is automatically suspect, and a criticism of themselves.’

  ‘You didn’t get on with him?’

  The expression became veiled. ‘Oh, I wouldn’t say that. Arthur was a good, decent, Godfearing man. I dare say he found me irritating. And of course he hated the fact that I had a career. In his eyes, a woman’s place was in the home. But he was a good dad to Stevie, according to his lights. I just felt I could offer him something he wouldn’t get with Maggie and Arthur – but I tried to do it discreetly.’ She met Slider’s eyes, and gave a hearty laugh. ‘Yes, I know! You don’t need to look at me like that. And of course, I’m not the most tactful person in the world. But we all tried to put a good face on it and get along, for the boy’s sake.’

  ‘Your sister’s older than you?’

  ‘Eight years.’

  ‘And there were just the two of you?’

  ‘There were two brothers in between, twins, but they died at birth. Poor Maggie was always very much the elder sister, running after me, trying to keep me out of trouble and getting the blame when she didn’t. And then Father died untimely, and Mother went to pieces rather, and Maggie had to mother me. It made her old before her time, poor darling, whereas I could go on being disgraceful all my life, safe in the knowledge that I was the baby of the family. Wicked!’

  ‘Were you? Wicked, I mean?’

  ‘Oh – no, not really. It’s just the mores of the time were against me. I mean, Arthur was a perfect example of the normality of those days. He thought it was disgraceful to see a woman smoking. And as for having my own bank account and cheque book – slippery slope! I often wondered why Maggie married him.’

  ‘Why do you think she did?’

  ‘Father replacement, I suppose. Move over Sigmund. But he was twenty years older than her – thirty in spirit. I suppose she was fed up with being Mother and wanted to become somebody’s daughter again. Well, that’s what we all want really, isn’t it – someone to take responsibility for us? Some more than others.’ The last words were muffled by the cigarette on which she pulled hard, blinking her eyes rapidly in the smoke.

  ‘Were they very religious – your sister and her husband?’

  ‘Well, quite, I suppose. Very, compared with me. But they weren’t weird about it or anything like that. Straightforward Methodist. They went to church every Sunday, Arthur taught the Sunday school, Maggie did teas at various church dos, that sort of thing. Arthur was a bit old-fashioned about keeping the Sabbath, but then he was old-fashioned about a lot of things. Wouldn’t let Steve eat in the street, for instance – not even an ice cream. Imagine, if the boy wanted a threepenny cornet, he had to bring it indoors and eat it sitting down at the table. Where’s the fun in that?’

  Slider smiled. ‘My mother was the same. She wouldn’t let us eat fish and chips out of the paper. We had to take it home and have it off plates. She said it was common to eat in the street.’

  Miss Giles smiled broadly. ‘I call that sheer cruelty! Was she a Methodist?’

  ‘No, just the normal C of E.’

  ‘Well, anyway, you can see why I felt I had to do my bit to introduce a little leaven into Steve’s life. Thank heaven Arthur never had a daughter, that’s all I can say.’
<
br />   ‘They never had any children of their own?’

  She shook her head. ‘They wanted them, but nothing happened. I rather fancy Arthur couldn’t, but it wasn’t something that was discussed in those days – and in any case, Maggie would never have discussed it with me. Loyalty, you know. So they adopted.’

  ‘Through the Church, I understand?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He waited for more, but she said nothing, sipping at her cigarette, her eyes fixed on the rising smoke.

  ‘Was anything known about the baby’s parents?’

  ‘It was a private adoption, arranged by their minister,’ she said. ‘Because of Arthur’s age they couldn’t go through the usual routes. But it was all legal and above-board.’

  She sounded defensive, and he said soothingly, ‘I’m sure it was. I just wondered if anything—’

  ‘Joshua Green was his name. I always think that sounds like a village in a children’s book. Not that there was anything pastoral about him – he was a real, eye-flashing, fire-and-brimstone preacher. Had a terrific following in the flock. And he was a great organiser. Maggie used to say he could organise a cat into having puppies.’ She puffed again. ‘It wasn’t the only adoption he arranged – Green. He was attached to a mother-and-baby home, financed by the Church. It was his pet charity, I believe. I suppose it was natural for Maggie to turn to him when she found she couldn’t have a child.’

  ‘But you think she knew nothing about the natural mother?’

  ‘How should I know what she knew?’ She sounded irritable. ‘All I know is that they kept those things very discreet in those days. Once the woman had given the kid away, she was supposed to bow out for ever. Nobody in those days thought adopted children would ever be allowed to look up their past, as they can now. The Children Act, or whatever it was called. Retrospective law is bad law, that’s what I’ve always been told. Fortunately most of them don’t bother. In any case, what has it got to do with anything? Maggie was the one who brought Steve up. She’s the one who moulded his character, if that’s what you’re enquiring about.’

  ‘According to him, you had quite a lot to do with it,’ Slider said smilingly.

  She got up abruptly from her seat and went over to the sink, emptied the dregs of her cup and ran the tap noisily into it.

  ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t catch what you said,’ Slider said when she turned it off.

  ‘I said, what did you want to know specifically about Steve? What’s he supposed to have done – or aren’t I allowed to know?’

  ‘There seem to be some irregularities in the conduct of a case in which he’s involved,’ Slider said carefully. ‘I’m just trying to clear things up. I worked with Mills some years ago and I’d prefer to get it straight myself than to see it passed to an outsider.’

  ‘You worked with him?’ she asked, her gaze sharpening. ‘Yes, wait a minute now, I remember your name. I thought there was something familiar about it. It was when he was at Charing Cross, wasn’t it? He used to talk about you sometimes – thought you were a good ’un and destined for high places.’

  ‘They don’t always go together, I’m afraid,’ Slider said. She was looking at him with interest and more friendliness now.

  ‘Well, what’s he supposed to have done? How can I help? What is this case?’

  Slider told her; and explained how Mills had been seen at the scene of the crime at the wrong moment. ‘I don’t believe there’s anything in it myself,’ he said casually, ‘but the witness seems a very steady sort of person, and she described him very well. She compiled a photofit picture for us, and it does look very like.’

  She sat down slowly in her vacated chair. She stared at him as though she had thought of something. ‘But he—’ She tried to lick her lips, and then went into a coughing fit. At the end of it, drumming her fist briskly against her chest she said, ‘Got to give these damned things up. You were saying – you don’t think there’s anything in it.’

  ‘I think the most likely thing is that the witness saw him somewhere else, and simply remembered him in the wrong place. After all, he was there during the evening. But with such a positive identification, I have to follow it up.’

  ‘Positive, yes,’ she said, and she laughed strangely, as if at a private joke. ‘Well, obviously, Steve isn’t a murderer – if you’ve worked with him, you know that anyway. He did come to see me on Thursday afternoon, and he left about – oh, I don’t know – half past six. Ish. I wasn’t checking, but it would be somewhere around there.’

  ‘Yes,’ Slider said. That tallied with what Mills had said. ‘Is he religious at all?’

  ‘Religious? What a horrible expression! If you mean, like his mum and dad, no he isn’t. But I’m sure he has an inner belief and an inner code, as most of us do. I don’t think he could be a good policeman if he didn’t believe in anything, do you? And he is a good policeman, isn’t he?’

  ‘I think so,’ Slider said. ‘But he isn’t a regular churchgoer? Doesn’t belong to any special groups?’

  ‘Not that I’m aware of.’

  Slider nodded, and went on chatting to her while his thoughts roamed. They hadn’t found anything of a religious nature in Mills’s flat, not even a Bible – though with an upbringing like his, Mills was likely to be au fait with the Bible, perhaps enough to be able to quote from it from memory. And as he was living in temporary accommodation, he might not have all his things with him. He must make a mental note to check that out.

  He rose to leave. ‘By the way, why didn’t you want Mills to come back to Shepherd’s Bush? I’d have thought you’d like to have him a bit nearer than Epsom, fond of him as you are.’

  She was ready for that one. ‘I didn’t like to think of him tied to the apron strings of two old biddies like me and his mum. Especially now Maggie’s going gaga. We could be a real drag on him, especially given his kind heart, and that’s not what I ever wanted for him. He’s got his own life to lead. I told him when he came round on Thursday that I didn’t want him popping in to see me every five minutes. That’s not the way to get ahead.’

  ‘And you want him to get ahead?’

  She looked at Slider with slightly narrowed eyes, though it might only have been because of the smoke rising from the freshly lit cigarette. ‘He’s the nearest thing I ever had to a son,’ she said. ‘Of course I want him to get ahead.’

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Private Lives

  Atherton knew that look. When Slider returned, he wore the expression of internal preoccupation, like a man who has just eaten rather too large a curry along with several pints of the Anglabangla’s Super Mistral lager.

  ‘What it is, guv?’ he asked, but without much hope. At this stage his guv’nor often didn’t know himself. It was just that something was trying to connect up inside his mind.

  Slider merely shook his head and headed for his office. Atherton followed. ‘No luck so far with the photofit, but it’s slow work, of course, everyone being so scattered. Thirteen staff and about twenty of the audience have been shown it and so far only one has said it looks familiar, and even she’s pretty vague – thinks she saw someone like that at some point but can’t be sure. People are so unobservant,’ he complained.

  ‘Yes,’ said Slider.

  Atherton looked at him enquiringly. ‘I can’t quite work out whether we want people to recognise this mug or not. I mean, if people saw Mills knocking around the building – is that good or bad?’

  ‘Has the photofit been shown to the man who sold his ticket?’

  ‘Jim Davies? Yes, and he thinks it might have been the same man, but he’s not sure. Still, at least he hasn’t said absolutely not, which gives us the possibility that the ticket-buyer looks enough like Mills to have confused Mrs Reynolds, and that makes him the murderer and then we only have to find him.’

  ‘Have you found out yet who actually wrote down the Davis name and address up in the canteen?’ Slider said abruptly.

  ‘Oh, yes, it was Coffey. D’you
want to talk to him?’

  Coffey, a young officer lent by the uniform side, came in looking shamefaced.

  ‘Your handwriting’s so bad you could have been a doctor,’ Slider said. ‘Did you think you were writing Davis or Davies?’

  ‘It’s Davis, sir, definitely. And I always check spellings like that. I know I did,’ he added earnestly, ‘because I’m a bit sensitive about names. Nearly everyone spells mine wrong.’

  ‘So you remember this man?’

  ‘Well, sir, no, not really.’ Slider looked up sharply, and Coffey lifted his hands slightly in a gesture of surrender. ‘There were so many people there, all milling about this sort of canteen, and we were sitting at tables writing while they came up one by one and sat down and gave their names and addresses. It was like a sausage machine. I just kept writing.’

  ‘You’ve had a look at the photofit?’

  ‘Yes, sir. Well, I suppose it could have been him, but I honestly can’t say I remember. I suppose I must have looked up at the people when they sat down, but I didn’t really take in any faces. I wasn’t looking to recognise them, I was just trying to hear what they said. There was so much noise in there, you could hardly hear yourself think, and—’ The sentence trailed off, and Slider could easily add the rest for himself – we were all cursing the guv’nor downstairs who thought we had nothing better to do than take the names and addresses of a couple of hundred punters. ‘But the photofit is supposed to be Mills, isn’t it, sir? I mean, I’d have noticed if he sat down in front of me, or someone like him.’

  Slider wouldn’t have bet on it, especially as Coffey could only have seen him for an instant downstairs. And as Atherton said, people were so unobservant.