‘The sooner the better. Tonight?’
‘Yes, tonight,’ she said eagerly. ‘But I’m working until quite late. I could come round afterwards. Where do you live?’ He told her. ‘I could probably get there by about eleven.’
‘That would be perfect,’ he said. He could feel himself trembling lightly all over like a tapped leaf.
‘But you won’t tell anyone?’
‘Who would I tell? I don’t particularly want to get found out either. I hate rows.’
‘Well, I won’t tell if you don’t. Absolute discretion?’
‘Absolute,’ he said. ‘I won’t breathe a word to a soul.’
Atherton had got ready well in advance of the hour, but he sweated so much he had to shower and change again. The house seemed horribly empty without the cats, Siamese twins with loud voices and acrobatic habits. But he could not have concentrated with them around. They had complained vociferously at being bundled next door. Atherton had told his neighbours he wanted to paint the bedroom before Emily got home and said with absolute truth that it was impossible to paint with them in the house – everything ended up hairy. He said he couldn’t shut them in anywhere because they had learned how to open doors, which was also true: one jumped up and swung from the door handle while the other hooked it open from the bottom. It was a ballet of cooperation. The neighbours had taken them with only a mild roll of the eyes.
Maybe she wouldn’t come, he thought for the umpteenth time. Did she really have information about Guthrie she was willing to tell him? Or was it just his gorgeous body she was after? Women in plenty had wanted him in pre-Emily days.
She wouldn’t come.
Perhaps she was the innocent party, trapped in a loveless marriage with a crime boss, and she wanted to expose Barrow and throw herself on Atherton’s protection. Perhaps she was just an ex-dancer running a nice school for ballet-mad little girls like she had been.
She was late. It was after eleven. The waiting was stretching his nerves. He longed for a drink but didn’t want to greet her with it on his breath. If she came. He couldn’t stop thinking – he wished he could. The image that came to mind again and again was of those young men slipping out of the ‘seniors only’ door and merging anonymously with the Tottenham Court Road crowds. The young men with a strong black cotton shoe bag slung casually over their shoulders. A parcel about the size of a bag of sugar could be concealed in any carrier or backpack. Or shoe bag. Something innocent that would draw no attention to itself.
She only now taught the boys who had gone out into the world, but came back for coaching. Boys who had parts in ballets or shows. Boys like Guthrie.
A soft knocking at the door made him jump half out of his skin. She hadn’t rung the doorbell – perhaps she knew that in a terrace house you could always hear next-door’s bell. He opened the door and she slipped in as soon as there was a crack wide enough, and pressed it closed behind her, like a conspirator. She looked like a conspirator, dressed in black trousers, a light black jacket and a beanie hat.
His mouth was dry. ‘I didn’t think you’d come,’ he managed to say.
‘I almost didn’t,’ she said. ‘You didn’t tell anyone?’
‘Not a soul.’
‘Good.’ She stepped past him – the door opened straight into the sitting room – looked around and said, ‘This is nice.’ With quick movements she pulled off the hat and jacket and dumped them with her big shoulder-bag on a chair, shook her hair free, then turned back and put herself straight into his arms. He was too surprised to avoid the embrace. Her body was pressed against his all the way up. Under his hands it felt hot and smooth; lithe and packed full of muscle. It was like holding a big cat. Her warm, full lips were on his mouth, her hands touching the back of his neck. His whole body reacted to her, and she must have felt it – you couldn’t have slipped a cigarette paper between them. He couldn’t help it – it was automatic – though he was half-horrified that he could spring an erection so immediately for another woman when there was Emily. But the physiology operated on a different system from the mind. Arousal could happen in the most inappropriate situations.
He was about to release himself when she disengaged, stepped back, looking into his face, and gave a smile that would have started him tingling if he weren’t already.
‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I shouldn’t have done that, but I wanted to be sure.’
‘Sure of what?’
‘Of what I felt was happening between us this morning. That’s why I wanted to meet you somewhere other than your office. I couldn’t imagine having to sit and talk to you and not be able to touch you. It would have made me crazy.’ She ran her fingers along his arm, but only in passing. She walked round the room – which didn’t take long, because it was tiny. Bijou, he called it.
‘This is a nice place,’ she said,
‘It’s a small place,’ he answered.
‘Cosy. I bet it’s lovely in the winter when you have a fire lit. It is a working fireplace, isn’t it? Yes, I knew it was. You’re the sort of person who would have real fires.’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘I know a lot about you just by looking at you, James Atherton. Is it James, or Jamie?’
‘Jim.’
‘That’s nice. Unaffected. You’re not a bit like my idea of a policeman, Jim.’
‘You’ve already said that.’
‘Sorry. Repeating myself. It must be nerves.’
She had done the circuit and come back to him, and they were standing in front of the fireplace.
‘Talking of policemen, you said you had some information for me,’ he said.
‘Oh, let’s leave that a little while, I’ll tell you everything later, but let’s just relax first.’ She stepped closer and put her hands on his chest. She must have been able to feel him trembling. She looked up into his face. Her breath was sweet, like recently-cleaned teeth. ‘We won’t be disturbed, will we? Your partner’s not likely to come back?’
‘No, she’s away,’ he heard himself say, as from a great distance. She was going to kiss him again and he wasn’t sure he could stand it. ‘She won’t be back until Monday.’
‘Wonderful,’ she breathed. ‘Then we can take as much time as we want. I do hate having to hurry.’
She didn’t kiss him. She stepped back and looked at him rather quizzically. ‘Aren’t you going to offer me a drink?’
‘Of course,’ he said, and managed a smile. ‘Sorry. What would you like?’
‘A vodka and tonic would be nice,’ she said. ‘And maybe some sounds?’
He walked towards the kitchen, and she followed but paused by his sound system. In the kitchen he rested his hands a moment on the counter top while he took a few deep breaths to control his shaking – undispersed hormones, that’s all it was, he told himself – then got out the vodka bottle and two glasses. He had just got the tonic and a lemon out of the fridge when she came in behind him, and all the hair stood up on his neck.
‘I daren’t mess about with your sound system,’ she said in a smiling voice. ‘I’m lousy with technology, and it looks like a good one. I’d be afraid to break something. Why don’t you put on some music, and I’ll make the drinks. That I can do.’
‘All right. What sort of music do you like?’ he asked.
‘Anything but ballet music,’ she said with a laugh. ‘Something light. Have you got any jazz?’
‘Yes, lots,’ he said.
‘I knew you’d be a jazz lover. Me too.’
‘What’s your favourite?’
‘You pick. I have wide tastes,’ she said, and turned to the drinks.
He picked out a Miles Davis album, taking his time about it, and put it on quietly, every nerve-ending taut, listening for sounds from the kitchen. But she made none. She came back in at last with two glasses, lightly effervescing, each floating a silver-beaded lemon slice.
‘That’s nice, what is that?’ she asked.
‘Miles Davis,’ he said. ‘Don’t y
ou recognize it?’
‘I can hardly hear it, it’s on so low. Can you turn it up a bit?’
He obliged, then turned to her and the drinks. ‘Which is mine?’ he asked, almost playful now.
She sensed his mood and smiled too. ‘This one,’ she said, holding it out to him.
‘Ah, thank you. That’s just what I needed.’ He reached out and slid his hand underneath it, gripping it with his fingertips around the bottom edge. ‘Excuse me if I just put it down over here. I shouldn’t like any of it to get spilled.’
She had been surprised into letting it go when he took hold of it, but as he slid it on to the table without touching the sides, her face hardened with suspicion. ‘What are you doing?’ she asked.
‘Making sure I don’t spoil your fingermarks,’ he said. ‘You know they’re called fingermarks, not fingerprints, don’t you? The prints are the copies we make for identification purposes.’
‘What do you mean? What are you doing?’
‘You see, you’ve been very good, very careful, but you made one little mistake at Robin Williams’s flat. When you went round wiping off all the fingermarks, you forgot that you had already put the vodka bottle back in the fridge. Out of sight was out of mind.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she said, but she was alert now, like a cat whipping its tail.
‘We got a lovely print, palm, five fingers and thumb – the lot,’ he said. Demonstrating with his hand in the air, gripping an imaginary bottle. ‘And now I’ve got yours to compare it with.’
‘You’re mad,’ she said. ‘I’ve never been to Robin Williams’s flat. I don’t even know who he is.’
‘Then you’ve nothing to worry about, have you?’ he said. ‘But I’ll still be analysing the contents of that glass you just gave me. Vodka and tonic is a nice, clean drink – very pure. But I suspect there’s a little something extra in mine, isn’t there?’
From nothing she moved like lightning, dashing the contents of her glass in his face and leaping for the table where his was sitting. But he was so keyed up his reactions were just as fast. He had jerked his head sideways enough not to get it in his eyes, and sprang to intercept her. ‘Oh no you don’t!’ he said, putting himself between her and the table.
She didn’t hesitate an instant, turning and crossing the room in a couple of athletic springs, grabbing for her handbag. He was after her, passing his hands round her from behind and gripping her wrists. She wrestled to get free, making no sound but her panting breaths. She was horribly strong. He shouted, ‘A little help, here!’ and was relieved to hear the instant response of movement, footsteps cascading down the stairs. Despite what you see on television and the movies, it is amazingly hard for one person to subdue another if they are determined. Slider and Connolly came across the room, Slider drawn and Connolly excited. There was a moment of trampling, panting effort until they got her to the ground, and with Connolly sitting on her legs the other two managed to get her hands behind her back and cuffed.
Still she struggled. ‘Stop it,’ Atherton said. ‘You’ll hurt yourself.’
Suddenly she was still. ‘You’ll pay for this,’ she said in a low, fierce voice. She twisted her head towards Slider. ‘He attacked me. Lured me here and attacked me. He would have raped me if you hadn’t come in. You’ve handcuffed the wrong person.’
‘We’ll see,’ said Slider quietly. Atherton could see he hated this. ‘Connolly, have a look in her bag. See what she was going for.’
Connolly, gloved, opened the bag and brought out a roll of black plastic sacks. ‘What every real lady should carry,’ she commented; and then, carefully, a Stanley knife with what was obviously a new blade. ‘Wasn’t me mammy always telling me, be prepared. You never know who you’ll meet down a dark alley.’
‘Evidence bags,’ Slider snapped. He didn’t like her taunting. ‘And a container for the liquid. Is it the one on the table?’ he asked Atherton.
‘Yes, I managed to stop her getting to it. This is hers that’s dripping from my face.’
‘Bag the glass as well,’ Slider told Connolly. And to Atherton, ‘Let’s have her on her feet, see what’s in her pockets.’
‘Touch me, and I’ll sue you for assault,’ she snarled, her face hard and bright with fury. There seemed no fear in her. Even at this disadvantage, Slider could see what Atherton had meant. She was astonishingly beautiful, in a feral way.
‘No you won’t,’ he said quietly. ‘I’m arresting you on suspicion of murder of Ben Corley, and attempted murder of Detective Sergeant Atherton. That’ll do for a start. You do not have to—’
‘Who the hell,’ she snarled between clenched teeth, ‘is Ben Corley?’
‘You knew him as Colin Redgrave, or perhaps Mike Horden or Robin Williams. He had many names in his time, including Ben Jackson, the singer and video director.’
She tilted her head up to the ceiling, the cords of her neck taut. ‘Christ!’ she ground out in an agony of discovery.
Connolly had done the liquid and the glass and Slider called her over with a jerk of the head to go through Mary Lynn’s pockets. There was not much in them, just a white envelope, folded up, which, when opened, proved to have contained a white powder, a faint dusting of which remained. Enough to analyse, anyway. ‘Evidence bag,’ Slider snapped again.
‘What was it?’ Atherton asked Lynn, easy now in his power over her. ‘The same as you gave the others?’
She swung her head round to look at him, and her face changed. Her eyes were bright, but no longer with fury. She was smiling, projecting all her considerable magnetism at him. ‘You don’t know what you’ve missed. We could have had such an evening together, something you’d remember the rest of your life.’
He felt it, even in this situation he felt it, but he would not give her the satisfaction of knowing it. He screwed up his face and laughed. ‘The rest of my life? Yes, all five minutes of it! Not much of a bargain.’
She hated to be laughed at. She began struggling furiously, and it took the three of them to get her back on the floor and quiet again
NINETEEN
Llama Sutra
Slider hadn’t liked it, Mr Porson definitely hadn’t liked it, and Emily had thought it was a terrible idea, as well as resenting being put out of her own house for the evening for another woman. The cats hadn’t liked it, and the neighbours obviously thought Atherton was a bit bonkers, painting at night – but they had already thought he was nuts anyway.
‘Who’s really nuts,’ Connolly said, ‘is your woman. What a looper! Does she not know you’re a policeman? Did she really think you’d not tell anyone?’
‘She was desperate,’ Atherton said. ‘It was a risk she felt she had to take.’
‘You obviously shook her with your questioning this morning,’ Slider said.
‘Hey,’ Atherton objected, covering up for the fact that she had really shaken him. ‘You’re not making allowance for the fabulous attractions of my manly bod.’
‘Yeah,’ said Connolly derisively, ‘and she knows all men think with their mickeys. Why wouldn’t she trust you?’
So Slider pulled another all-nighter, going through the processes. Mary Lynn was as furious as a cat in a carrier and refusing to say anything, but that suited him at the moment, while he waited for the result of the fingerprint comparison and the vodka and tonic analysis. Let her steep a bit and have time to think. And he needed time to think, too. If the results came back as he expected, he would have her on the murder of Ben Corley, which was the main thing, the thing he had been holding out for. But it was not intellectually satisfying. He still didn’t know what had been going on. He wanted to see and understand the whole picture.
Early in the morning he went up to the canteen to get some breakfast, and was just dabbing a sausage in some tomato sauce when he was called to the telephone. Sic transit glorious breakfast, he thought with a sigh.
It was Jonny Care. He sounded excited. ‘I’ve got something on Sylvia Regal,’
he said.
It seemed that she had not been invited to the opening night in York after all, but had invited herself. Her booking at the Royal York was made at the last minute; she had come into the theatre after the start via the stage door, and watched from the wings. And, at the end of the play, when the curtain calls were being taken, she had simply walked on when the producer did. Everyone had been too polite to object, had allowed her to take her part of the ovation, and had invited her to the party. There she had almost mugged the Yorkshire Post correspondent to be interviewed. The Yorkshire Post correspondent being a young man – and Sylvia Scott being tolerably famous and reasonably good looking – had not put up much of a struggle. The costumes had, in fact, been very good, and she made a good photo, so he didn’t mind submitting her along with his other bits.
‘So she was manufacturing an alibi?’ Slider said.
‘That’s what it looks like,’ Care agreed. ‘And combined with her mistake over her husband’s car, we’ve got enough to put pressure on her. She’s already jittery as hell – I think she’ll break. Obviously she didn’t do the actual killing, but I bet she was in on it. Once she understands she’s just as liable as the murderer, I think she’ll give it up. I’m going to have a crack at her this morning. Want to come?’
‘What’ll your boss say?’
‘I’ve squared it with him. He knows you’ve got an interest in Regal. He says as long as you’re not in the room. We’ll put her in the pokey and you can watch through the glass.’
‘I’ve got some news, as well,’ Slider said, and told him about Mary Lynn.
Care whistled. ‘That puts a different complexion on it. What’s the betting sister Mary did the actual job? What are they like!’
‘A blest pair of sirens,’ said Slider.
‘Well, with all that, if we can’t make her sing I’m a monkey’s uncle. You coming?’
‘Wouldn’t miss it for worlds,’ said Slider.
Presented with the evidence about her alibi, her mistake about her husband’s car, and some pointed questions about who would inherit his fortune, Sylvia Regal had been rattled; topped off with the news of the arrest of her sister for murder, it had been enough to break her. She sang, and kept singing, urged on by a terror of prison and the golden glimmer held out to her that turning Queen’s evidence might get her off more lightly.
Blood Never Dies Page 28
