Dead End (31 page)

He came back from his long journey. ‘Jo, I’m sorry, I’m going to have to go,’ he said. He looked at her with such tentative apprehension, as though he thought it might be rolling-pin time again, that any indignation she might have felt expired in a puddle of amusement.

‘Go where?’

‘I’ve got to go back to the station. I need to have all the papers to hand.’

‘It’s the case, is it? Is there something wrong?’

‘It doesn’t fit,’ he said. ‘There’s something that doesn’t fit. I’ve just got to go over it again and—’ He was away with his thoughts again. Joanna got up and went silently to fetch his coat. She thrust it into his arms and turned him towards the door.

‘Go,’ she said. ‘And drive carefully.’

‘I’m sorry to mess up your evening,’ he began, trying to look over his shoulder at her.

‘Your evening too. It’s all right, I understand.’

‘I’ll make it up to you.’

‘I know you will. Just promise me one thing? Phone me later – when you can, when you’ve something to tell me.’ She reached past him to open the door, and he turned in the confined space and kissed her.

‘I love you,’ he said. And went.

Seven o’clock in the morning is usually a quiet time in a police station. The CID office is unmanned, night shift ending at six and early shift not coming on until eight. Slider lifted his head from the sea of papers and looked towards the windows, seeing the early sky pale and sunless, hearing the morning traffic getting into its stride along Uxbridge Road. He picked up the telephone and dialled.

‘Freddie! I’m sorry to bother you so early. Oh good. Did you have a nice holiday? Well, it’s something that happened while you were away. Oh, you heard about that? No, I don’t know that there’s anything wrong, exactly, but I wondered if you’d have a look at the PM report for me. I don’t want to say until
you’ve looked at it – I want your unbiased opinion. If I fax it to you now, could you look at it right away and ring me back? Yes, I know, but I do think it’s important. All right. Thanks a lot. I’ll go and do it right now. Thanks, Freddie. Bye.’

It was almost eight o’clock when Cameron called back. ‘You were a long time,’ Slider said.

‘My dear old boy, you didn’t expect me to sit and read your blasted report in my skivvies, did you? I had to bath and shave and dress, and then I read it while I had my breakfast.’

‘Breakfast,’ Slider said in a mixture of exasperation and longing. The spag bol of sacred memory was now a long way in the past.

‘Certainly breakfast. Martha promised me kedgeree this morning. Only a certified madman passes up on Martha’s kedgeree.’ Even his voice was replete, Slider thought bitterly. ‘Anyway, I’m here now. What’s the problem with this PM?’

‘Do you think the conclusion is all right. The cause of death?’

‘I didn’t examine the body, old chum. But it looks all right to me. Laddo James knows what he’s doing. I don’t know much about him personally, but his reputation is certainly sound.’

‘But the bullet – it was hardly more than a flesh wound. It was at extreme range and it damaged no organs. Could it really have caused his death?’

‘Let’s be accurate: it was the shock that caused his death, and there’s nothing surprising about that. He was an old man. Shock is a very individual thing. You can never be sure how it will affect people.’

‘But Radek was very fit, and there was nothing wrong with his heart. Look, Freddie, you’re a bit of a music buff. You know how healthy conductors usually are.’

‘Yes, I know. They do tend to live for ever. I grant that on the surface it may seem surprising that such an unimportant wound should have led to his death, but as I said, shock acts very idiosyncratically.’

‘All right,’ Slider said, changing foot, ‘but then there’s something else. The cadaveric spasm. His left hand was clutching the neck of his jumper, his right hand was clenched on nothing.’

‘That’s right.’

‘Just visualise it, will you, Freddie? He’s standing there in front of the orchestra waiting to begin, with his baton in his
right hand, his left hand poised in the air. There’s a loud bang and he’s struck in the lower back by a bullet, and in the emotion of the terrible shock he clutches at his sweater so violently that the spasm remains after death, but he
drops his stick.’

There was a silence at the other end. ‘Yes, I see what you mean. It is odd.’

‘He must have dropped the stick before the death spasm. If it was the shot caused the spasm, why did he drop it?’

‘I don’t know, chum. Is this leading where I think it’s leading?’

‘Is it possible,’ Slider said, ‘that it wasn’t the bullet that killed him?’

‘I keep telling you, what killed him was the syncope.’

‘All right, is it possible that something else caused the syncope? Could James have missed something?’

‘It’s possible, old boy, anything’s possible. But are you suggesting the shooting was a belt-and-braces job, or just an accidental concurrence? For someone to have shot him at that precise moment would be a bit of a coincidence, wouldn’t it?’

‘Coincidences are coincidental. That’s the thing about them. Anyway, the man who fired the shot says it was the surprise of seeing Radek fall that made him pull the trigger.’

‘Sounds a bit thin to me.’

‘But it’s medically possible?’

‘It’s possible. So what are you thinking?’

‘I don’t know yet, only that I can’t make it come out straight as it is. There’s the cadaveric spasm. There’s the fact that the gunman – and I admit he’s not the most reliable witness – says Radek fell before he pulled the trigger. And there’s the way he fell, too – he crumpled forward quite gently, didn’t even knock over the music stand. If you’d been hit in the back by a bullet, wouldn’t you arch backwards? Wouldn’t you automatically clutch at it?’

‘One would have thought so, yes. But I’ve never tried it, so I can’t swear to it.’

‘What else could have caused the syncope, Freddie?’

‘Well, some other kind of shock or insult. Something that attacked the central nervous system. A virus or a bacterial invasion could do it. Or some kind of toxin. Did he drug?’

‘Apparently, but not to excess. I don’t think it’s likely he
took anything of that sort beforehand, though. It wasn’t his way – he took stuff afterwards to wind down. But he might have taken something medicinal. He was a bit of a hypochondriac.’

‘Accidental poisoning, then. Were there any symptoms?’

‘No,’ Slider said uncertainly. ‘Not really. We’ve one witness says he looked unwell, another says he was sweating a lot, but nothing concrete. But even if they were symptoms, he was apparently all right up to about five minutes beforehand.’

‘It could be a quick-acting toxin, with or without the added insult of the bullet – given his age, even though he was fit, the combination might bring on a syncope before any strong symptoms developed.’

‘But if he was poisoned,’ Slider said, ‘wouldn’t it leave post mortem signs?’

‘Not necessarily to the naked eye. But all poisons are detectable in one way or another.’

Slider was silent a moment, thinking of the trouble it would cause, thinking of the resistance from the family, from his seniors, the ruckus in the press. But as it was, it didn’t fit, it didn’t fit. And Radek was still above ground. Just. It would make it much worse to have to get an exhumation order later. If he was going to go any further, he had to act today.

‘Freddie, if I get the paperwork, could you do a re-examination? Could you test for poisoning?’

‘Certainly, Bill, certainly. You just tell me which poison.’

Ah, yes, there was the rub. ‘I don’t know.’

‘Can’t test for that one, chum.’

‘I’ll find out,’ Slider said, ‘I’ve got to give it some more thought.’

‘You certainly have,’ said Cameron. Slider could hear in his voice the quizzical edge of a man who thinks his friend’s got a chimera by the tail.

‘But you’ll hold yourself ready?’

‘I’ll have the bleeper with me, and I’ll come running at the sound of your lovely voice,’ Freddie promised.

Slider put the phone down dazedly. Which poison? Ah yes, and if there was a poison, who administered it, and how, and when, and why? It occurred to him that if Radek had been killed
other than by shooting, it opened up the whole field of suspects again. It could be anyone. It could even be Fay Coleraine, and eliminating her from suspicion had been his only comfort from the beginning of the case.

Norma was the first in. Slider called her into his office and gave her a job to do. She listened gravely, nodded, and went away without comment or protest. Thank God for Norma, he thought, as he had so often thought before. Then he dialled Barrington’s number, but there was no answer. Slider contemplated calling his bleep, but then decided he was probably on his way here anyway, so he might as well wait until he arrived before tackling the delicate problem.

As he put the telephone down, it rang again. He thought immediately of Joanna, whom he hadn’t called yet; and then felt an absurd flush of guilt as it turned out to be Irene.

‘I thought you’d have called me over the weekend.’

‘I’m sorry. I didn’t have time. The case broke, and I was working twenty-four hours a day.’

‘You’ve got a result?’ It was the most interested she’d sounded about his job in years.

‘Yes. And a full voluntary confession.’ No point in telling her his doubts.

‘Oh good. I am pleased for you. And Matthew will be. He keeps badgering me for details.’

Slider thought briefly and painfully about the empty bedroom and the poster. ‘How is he? And Kate?’

‘They miss you,’ Irene said, surprisingly generously. But then, he reminded himself, she thought she was the guilty party.

‘They always did,’ he said. ‘Even when I was there.’

‘Bill, don’t. I don’t want to revive old quarrels. I want us to be friends now. Can’t we?’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I want that too.’ He made an effort. ‘We must meet. I’ve got a lot of things to tell you.’

‘We’ve got to talk about the house. And the divorce. I’m sorry, Bill, but we have to talk about that.’

‘Yes, I know.’

‘Have you got somewhere to stay yet?’

‘Nearly. I’m working on it. I’ve got a bit of work to do on the case first, but I should be clear by the end of the week.’

‘Then come and see us. All of us, I mean. Come on Saturday so you can see the children.’

‘I don’t – don’t want to come to Ernie’s house.’

‘Oh
Bill
—!’

‘I’m sorry. I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but I don’t want to see my children in his house.’

He surprised himself by the firmness with which he said it, and it seemed to surprise her, too. After a moment she said, almost respectfully, ‘Whatever you say, darling. We’ll meet you anywhere you like.’

‘Thanks,’ Slider said, and meant it. ‘Look, I must go now. I’ll ring you later in the week and arrange something for Saturday. We’ll go out somewhere nice. Have a think meanwhile where the children would like to go.’

‘I’ll ask them.’ A slight pause. ‘Are you all right? Are you eating properly and everything?’

‘I’m fine.’

‘Only I know what you’re like when you’re in the middle of a case. You must take care of yourself.’

It was making him want to cry, all this tender concern. The sooner he confessed his guilt to her the better. ‘I’m fine, really. I’ll ring you on Friday.’

When she’d rung off, he pressed the rest for a dialling tone and called Joanna. The sound of her voice settled his ruffled feathers. ‘Nothing’s happened yet. I’m still working on my doubts. I’ll let you know as soon as I’ve got somewhere.’

‘All right. Have you had breakfast?’

‘Not yet.’

‘Have some. You must feed the inner man.’

He smiled. ‘Not you as well! All this tender concern.’

‘I love you more than Atherton does,’ she said sternly.

‘He’s not in yet. I was talking to Irene.’

‘Oh. Now you’ve made me jealous. You called her before me.’

‘No, it’s all right, she called me. But I’ll have to go and see her next weekend. Her and the children.’

‘That’s all right. You don’t have to ask my permission.’

‘I’ll have to tell her about us.’

‘What about us?’ She sounded suspicious.

‘Well, everything.’

‘Oh no you don’t!’

‘But I have to. It isn’t fair. She thinks she’s the guilty party,’ Slider protested.

‘Don’t be such a gimboid! She probably enjoys it – all women like to feel dangerous, and precious little chance she’s ever had before. If you tell her all our past history, just to ease your own conscience, you’ll make her miserable and probably foul up the divorce into the bargain, and what good will that do? And the children will find out that you were unfaithful to their mother and they’ll be miserable too. Then she’ll probably try to stop you seeing them – and they’ll probably agree with her.’