Fell Purpose (28 page)

‘What, no long chat with her mate Sophy that she was going to visit?’ Mackay said with ironic surprise.

‘She could have rung
her
on the house phone,’ Connolly pointed out.

‘True,’ said Hart. ‘But I bet if she did it’d be a short one.’

‘Who else did she ring?’ Slider prompted.

‘Well, in the days before it was only Sophy and Chloë, and going back further it was mostly them and another girl they mentioned, Frieda Mossman. Otherwise just a sprinkling of calls you might expect – the home number, the ballet school, the art-master Markov, Oliver Paulson’s flat, Domino’s Pizza, a What’s On in London information line, the central library at Hammersmith, that sort of thing.’

‘What about Carmichael?’ Hart said.

‘Before Sunday, the last previous call she made to him on her mobile was the beginning of June.’

‘So that rather confirms what he said,’ Slider mused. ‘That they hadn’t been seeing each other recently.’

‘If she did make a date with another bloke,’ Hart said, ‘how did she do it? Not on her mobile. Not on her dad’s phone for obvious reasons. So how?’

‘Maybe Sophy or Chloë made it for her,’ Connolly suggested.

‘But they didn’t know about it, or who it was,’ Slider reminded her. ‘I suppose she could have made the date face to face at some point.’

‘Or it could be that Biker Boy’s story is the load of Tottenham we know it to be,’ Hart finished.

‘Yeah, that gets my vote,’ said McLaren.

‘There’s a lot about Carmichael that bothers me,’ Slider said, ‘but there’s also a lot about him as a suspect that bothers me – mainly a motive.’

‘Fit of temper,’ Mackay said. ‘Why not?’

‘Because of the tights,’ Slider answered. ‘The tights make it premeditated, which requires a motive, and I can’t see what motive he had – apart from annoyance over the second date, which we don’t believe in anyway.’

‘And we’re forgetting Ronnie Oates,’ McLaren said, just as Hollis appeared in the doorway. ‘How’s it goin’, Col?’

‘Got it all down,’ Hollis said. ‘He’s signed it and now he’s cheery and comfortable, tucked up for the night. They’re getting him shepherd’s pie and beans for his tea. You never saw such a happy felon. Good job he’s got an unhappy solicitor to make up the balance.’

‘Which one was it?’ Mackay asked with professional interest.

‘That Jane Dormer,’ Hollis said. ‘She was next on the list. Came in with a face like a boot, and it just got longer.’

‘Didn’t Atherton go out with her once?’ McLaren said.

‘More than once,’ said Hart. ‘I remember Swilley bollocking him about it. “You’ve got to stop doinking the enemy, Jim,” she said.’

‘The enemy? He doesn’t go out with criminals, does he?’ Connolly said, shocked.

‘The legal profession,’ Hart clarified.

Hollis went on. ‘Anyway, La Dormer was not happy that we’d questioned Ronnie without her, and very suspicious about him waiving his right to her divine presence, but there was nothing she could do about it, because he repeated it all in front of her, and she could see he wasn’t cowed and didn’t have any bruises or missing teeth. Well, no more missing teeth than usual. He couldn’t wait to do his confession all over again, with no prompting from me. Loving the whole thing. So she was stymied. All she could do was give me a lecture about oppressing minorities and trampling on civil liberties, etcetera, etcetera.’

‘That’s something, coming from her,’ McLaren said. ‘It was her got that Dave Gammel, the Pensioner Mugger, off on a technicality. Wasn’t worried about the civil liberties of his victims, was she?’

‘The main thing,’ Slider recaptured the thread, ‘is that he repeated his confession – is that right?’

Hollis nodded, but made a wry face. ‘Trouble is, he wasn’t very good on the details of the actual murder. Nice and circumstantial about going to the fair and watching her and following her at a distance across the Scrubs. Then it starts to fall apart. He seems to have lost sight of her for a bit. Says he watched a couple snogging by the changing rooms, but that doesn’t seem to have been Zellah and her feller. Then he says Zellah was asleep when he first saw her.’

‘Which is what he told you from the beginning,’ Slider said uneasily.

‘Yes, then he contradicts that and says she came on to him. And when he comes to the murder itself, he seems to be mixing it up with Wanda Lempowski. Says she asked for money and said he could do what he liked, so he started strangling her, but she started screaming so he pulled tighter to stop her, and the next thing she was dead. Said he didn’t mean to. Begged us not to tell his mum.’

‘It couldn’t have been like that,’ Slider said. ‘Zellah wasn’t a prostitute.’

‘Unless,’ Connolly said, ‘she was just doing it to sort of get back at her dad. Not the strangling, obviously, but having sex for money. You know, “You don’t trust me so I’ll give you something not to trust”, sort of thing. Not knowing what Ronnie liked to do.’

‘Cutting off her nose to spite her face, you mean?’ Slider said.

Hart said thoughtfully, ‘Yeah. If she’d had a rotten evening and was looking forward to a row with her dad, she might just decide to throw everything over and be as bad as she could for the hell of it. Might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb, sort o’ style.’

Slider said, ‘Ye–es. It’s a theory. There’s just one tiny snag with it.’

‘Ronnie,’ said Hollis. ‘Even to get back at her old man, would she really come on to Ronnie Oates?’

‘Exactly.’

‘So what d’you think is going on, then, sir?’ Connolly asked.

‘Ronnie’s attention-seeking,’ Slider said. ‘He doesn’t grasp the significance of what he’s doing; he’s just enjoying being a big man and having everyone listen to him.’

‘Not to mention whatever he wants to eat, plus waiter service,’ Hollis added. ‘The trouble is—’

‘It still could have been him,’ Slider concluded. ‘The fact that this present account doesn’t add up doesn’t mean there isn’t another one somewhere that does, that he’s not remembering. We have to get more confirmation, someone who saw something. Connolly, you were on that. Anything?’

‘Not yet, sir. I’m still trying to find out who the snogging couple were. They seem to have been around a lot of the time. And the blue or black car parked under the bridge comes up a bit, but no one remembers the number.’

‘Keep working on it,’ Slider said. ‘Something will come up. Meanwhile—’

‘Meanwhile,’ Atherton interrupted, walking in at that moment, ‘Wilding has flitted again.’

‘Wojjer mean, again?’ Hart said. ‘How can you flit from a flit?’

‘I found the wife’s sister,’ Atherton said, perching on a desk and looking round. ‘No tea for me?’

‘We didn’t know you were coming,’ Hart said. ‘Have a bun and get on with it.’

He took the last remaining Bath bun and began picking the currants out with his long, precise fingers, like a doctor removing buckshot from a bottom. ‘I traced Mrs Wilding’s sister, and rang up to see if they had gone there, which they had. The sister – a Mrs Peachey – sounded nervous and twitchy, so I asked to speak to Mr Wilding, and the next thing, Mrs Wilding came on, distraught. It seems they’d had a huge row about Zellah. Our Pam, having the usual unregulated emotions of the cerebrally challenged, apparently expressed her grief over the loss of her daughter by attacking her husband for having been too strict with the girl all her life. The logic of her position escaping the fond father, he attacked her right back for having persuaded him to let Zellah go to Sophy’s for a sleepover against his better judgement. He said it was her fault Zellah was dead. She responded that,
au contraire
, if he’d let her have a normal life she’d have known how to take care of herself. Little Pam screamed that he had killed his precious as surely as if he had strangled her himself, upon which he bellowed loud enough to shake the chandeliers, belted her round the side of the head, and rushed from the house shouting that he was going to kill himself. She yelled he should get on with it and do everyone a favour. However, when he didn’t return, she cooled off and started to wonder whether he really meant it, and now she’s in a state of complete meltdown. End of Act Two, audience goes wild, curtain, lights up and ice cream all round.’

‘Them as says it, never does it,’ Hollis suggested.

‘Unless, of course, they are already racked with guilt because they actually
did
strangle the precious,’ Atherton said. ‘It’s looking better, isn’t it? He was out all night and didn’t tell us; he knew what time the murder happened without our telling him; he had her phone at home – what girl ever goes out without her mobile? – and he did a runner. Now he’s done a runner from a runner.’

‘She didn’t use the mobile after that morning,’ Slider said. ‘We got the records. She phoned Carmichael from it that morning, and that was the last call made. So it’s quite possible she did just leave it behind by mistake.’

Atherton looked pleased. ‘That’s even better. She left it behind. Daddy, creeping about her bedroom trying to catch her out – because I’d bet anything he did snoop around when she wasn’t there – finds it, does last number recall and discovers she’s rung the boyfriend from the sink estate when he’s forbidden her to. He blows a fuse and decides she has to go. Actually,’ he concluded, ‘it’s
better
if she really did leave the mobile behind.’

Slider couldn’t deny that. Deceit was something that really could enrage a controller like Wilding. He thought of the sketch book, not quite properly concealed under the mattress. Had Wilding found that as well? Had he realized that all the rules he could make wouldn’t stop his little girl from slipping away from him eventually? Had he seen in these successful deceits the inevitable end of the game, where she grew up and left home and he never saw her again? In his passion, rage and grief did he perhaps decide that the only solution was that she must never grow up?

‘We’ll have to find him, that’s certain,’ Slider said. ‘For his own safety if nothing else.’

‘Sceptic!’ Atherton snorted. He discovered he was hungry, having missed lunch, and demolished the denuded bun in three chomps.

‘Did Mrs Wilding have any idea where he might have gone?’

‘She could only think he must have gone home, but she’s been ringing there without getting an answer.’

‘Any other relatives he might have gone to?’

‘I asked that. Wilding was an only child. Mrs W only has the one sister. Parents all dead. A couple of cousins they aren’t close to. And they’ve never really had any friends. Why am I not surprised? Besides, she’s convinced he’s gone to “do something stupid” as she so elegantly puts it, which I gather is either kill himself or someone else.’

‘Who else could he kill?’ Connolly asked. ‘If he’s blaming his wife and she’s blaming him?’

‘Sophy, for leading Zellah astray,’ Atherton suggested. ‘Sophy’s parents for not bringing her up right. Carmichael for trying to corrupt the perfect lily.’

‘We’ve got Carmichael here,’ Mackay pointed out.

‘I don’t suppose Wilding knows that,’ Atherton said. ‘And if my idea about last number recall is right, he might have gone off to slaughter the Goth before doing himself in.’

‘All right,’ Slider said. ‘We’ll ask Basingstoke police to look out for him. Alert Reading police in case he goes to Woodley South estate. We’ll have to have someone watch the house in Violet Street in case he goes home. And we’ll put out a Met-wide alert for him. We’ve got the make and reg number of his car?’ Atherton nodded. ‘All right, get those and a description of him out to every borough.’

‘Wanted for murder?’ McLaren asked eagerly.

‘For questioning.’ Slider still felt a father’s tenderness about suspecting him, however bad things looked. ‘And to stop him committing suicide—’

‘Which would bugger up the investigation,’ Hart concluded.

‘Where do Londoners go to kill themselves?’ Slider asked.

‘The river,’ said Connolly.

‘Or the railway,’ Mackay added.

‘There’s plenty of railway right next to the murder site,’ McLaren pointed out.

‘And a dog returns to his vomit,’ Atherton said.

‘Must you?’ Hart complained, still bun in hand.

‘That’s a good point,’ Slider intervened. ‘If he doesn’t go home, he might go back to the scene of the crime, whether he did it or not. It was the last place she was alive.’

‘We’ve still got it taped off,’ Atherton pointed out.

‘Better alert the uniforms there to keep an eye out for him,’ Slider said. ‘Connolly, run down and do that, will you? Impress on them the importance of nabbing him if sighted. Is that everything covered? Can anyone think of anything else?’ No answer. ‘Right, then, let’s get organized. And meanwhile,’ he added with a sigh, ‘I’d better go and see Mr Porson about the extra expense.’

‘Not our fault, guv,’ Hart said smartly. ‘It was that organ, Organ, for letting him go. What a dipstick!’

‘Organ Organ?’ said McLaren eagerly. ‘That’s as bad as Michael Carmichael.’

Hart gave him her most exasperated huff. ‘You’re so slow, you should have your own time zone.’

Atherton appeared at the door to Slider’s office where he was toiling over the essential paperwork. ‘I was thinking it was time to go home.’