Fell Purpose (35 page)

‘Zellah met Carmichael here, I understand?’

‘Oh, you know that? Well, yes. They called round one Saturday, the girls, when Mike was here. They all liked him right away – even Soph, until she found out he was from the Woodley South – but you could see Zellah was struck all of a heap. Well, he’s a good-looking guy, and a smooth operator, and I don’t think Zellah had much experience with boys. One smile from him and that kid was toast.’

‘Didn’t that worry you?’

He looked puzzled, then it cleared. ‘What, you mean because Mike’s a . . . because of the . . .? No, Mike’s a stand-up guy. I like him. He’s a decent bloke. He wouldn’t give drugs to a kid like her. And you could see he liked her.’

‘Did any of the girls take drugs?’

‘No!’ he said, seeming shocked at the question. ‘I’m certain Chlo doesn’t, and I’m pretty sure Zellah wouldn’t – she was very strait-laced about some things. Sophy – well, she’s a savvy kid, and she doesn’t care what she does. But I reckon that’s more talk than action. They never took drugs here. And I don’t keep anything in the house, so they couldn’t have found anything by accident, I promise you that.’

‘You say Zellah was strait-laced about some things. What
wasn’t
she strait-laced about?’

‘Well . . .’ He looked uncomfortable. ‘She and Mike – I mean, she’s just a kid, but they weren’t just friends, if you know what I mean.’

‘You mean they were having sex,’ Slider said calmly. Odd that
he
was so embarrassed about it. Grown-up-ness seemed to exist in discrete patches in his generation.

‘Mike talked about it a bit,’ he said awkwardly. ‘I mean, not
details
, obviously, but he said she was really uninhibited. Wild in bed. He seemed a bit uneasy about it sometimes. I mean, he was obviously into her, but I think he thought she was a bit
too
into him, if you know what I mean. I mean, she was very young. It must have been a bit of a responsibility.’

‘Were Sophy and Chloë having sexual relationships as well?’

‘I doubt it. Chloë’s as innocent as the day is long. They talked about it a lot – honestly, sometimes they could make
me
blush, the way they talked about sex and boys and so on. But I think that was all bluff. Sophy wanted to sound like a hard case, and Chlo would do whatever Soph did. I’d bet they never went further than snogging. But then little Zellah, who wouldn’t say boo to a goose, steps right in and does the deed. No fuss, no muss. All the way. It’d make you laugh.’ But he didn’t laugh. He was thoughtful now. ‘I think maybe that’s partly why Soph was so mad about her and Mike – not just that Mike was lower class, but that Zellah had done what she didn’t dare to do.’

‘Do you think she disapproved?’

‘What, of the whole sex thing? Yeah, maybe she did. But she’d run her mouth so often about doing it and not caring that she couldn’t go back on it now.’ He looked at Slider propitiatingly. ‘You know what girls are like. Worse than boys for boasting and talking dirty. They egg each other on. It’d make a cat blush, sometimes, the things they say.’

‘Do you think Zellah was in love with Mike?’

He thought about it. ‘I think she was – at first, anyway. She was mad about him, and it wasn’t just sex. It must have been a lonely life for her, the way things were at home. But it was always hard to tell with Zellah what she really thought about anything. And of course she did dump him in the end.’

‘Ending it was her idea, was it?’

‘Well, according to Mike she just stopped phoning him. He couldn’t understand it.’

‘She didn’t give a reason?’

‘Mike never said. I think he was a bit miffed, so he didn’t like talking about it.’

‘Do you remember when that was – when they stopped seeing each other?’

He shook his head slowly. ‘I can’t say exactly. A couple of months ago, anyway. It’s not like I wrote it down in my diary, you know?’

‘Try to think. It may be important.’

He screwed up his face. ‘I can’t remember,’ he said at last. ‘Some time after Easter. They were still together in the Easter holidays, I remember that, because of all the planning that went on, for them to be able to see each other. So it was after that. Beginning, middle of May, maybe.’

‘But of course they may still have been seeing each other secretly,’ Slider threw in casually.

‘I don’t think so,’ Paulson said at once. ‘She was seeing someone else.’

‘Are you sure about that?’

‘Oh, yes,’ he said. ‘But I don’t know who,’ he added, anticipating the question. ‘She was very secretive about it.’

‘She didn’t ever meet him at your house?’

‘No. I don’t know where they met. He must have had his own place. You see, when she was going out with Mike, I didn’t see her here so much, because she was meeting him at his flat. And when she broke off with him, she came here a bit more often, but not as much as before Mike. So I reckon she was seeing the new bloke at his place.’

Slider pondered this. ‘What did Chloë and Sophy think about the new boyfriend?’

‘I don’t think they knew about him. I think she was keeping him a secret from them. I never heard her talk about him.’

‘Then how do you know there
was
anybody?’ Slider said, frustrated.

He found this question difficult to answer. ‘I just
know
there was someone. She was in love. You could see it – that look they have, sort of dreamy and always thinking about something else. She was like that about Mike at first, but she wasn’t secretive about him – not with us, anyway. No, I’m certain there
was
someone. But it was a big secret.’

‘Why did it have to be a secret?’ Slider asked. He felt a sense of doom creeping up on him. Not a whole new person to investigate, not at this stage!

‘I don’t know. Maybe it was someone she thought Sophy would disapprove of. Maybe she just didn’t want to go through all that again.’ He stretched. ‘Anything else? ’Cause I’ve got a bit of work I ought to finish up, and I’m going out tonight.’

‘Just a couple more questions,’ Slider said. Because of the way he was sitting he had been staring, over Paulson’s shoulder, at an enormous painting on the wall over the fireplace, and it reminded him of something Carmichael had said. ‘I understand you know Alex Markov?’

‘Yeah, I’ve met him at parties and things. We’re not close mates or anything, but I know him.’

‘He’s another customer of Mike Carmichael’s, I understand.’

He looked cautious. ‘Well, I don’t know about that.’

‘Oh, come on, if you’ve met him at parties you must know he likes the same jollies as you. Anyway, Mike told me so.’

‘Well, why are you asking me, then?’ he said sulkily. ‘Yeah, he does a line or two. So what? Everyone does.’

‘More than a line or two?’

‘I’m not his keeper. But I’ve seen him get monged occasionally. Well, more than occasionally. What of it?’

‘Has he been here to your flat?’

‘Yeah, once or twice,’ he said reluctantly. Evidently Markov was not someone he wanted to have associated with his name – at least, not in front of a police officer. Slider found that interesting. He had been enthusiastic about Carmichael, who on the face of it was a far more dangerous acquaintance to admit.

‘Has he met the girls here?’ he asked.

‘I don’t think so. But they know him anyway – he’s a teacher at their school. He’s not like an ordinary teacher, though,’ he added quickly, in case Slider thought him uncool to hang with a member of the NUT. ‘He teaches art, and he’s an artist himself. The teaching’s just to pay the rent, you know. The painting’s his real career. He’s good. I bought one of his things once – that’s it, over there. Cool, isn’t it?’

The massive canvas, about six feet by four, was painted with two oblongs of different shades of red, which overlapped near the middle making a third shade. It dominated that end of the room, but cool was the last thing Slider would have said about all that redness.

‘I don’t know anything about modern art,’ he excused himself.

‘Well, I don’t either,’ Paulson confessed endearingly, ‘but I liked the colour, and the poor bloke was short of a bob or two and I’d just had a bonus, so I thought it couldn’t hurt. An original Markov – maybe it’ll be worth a fortune one day. Who knows?’

‘Why was he short of money?’

‘I don’t know,’ Paulson said with easy indifference. ‘Expensive lifestyle, I suppose.’ Slider thought of the flat, the skiing holidays, and above all the drug habit. ‘I don’t think the teaching pays much – it’s not full-time.’

‘There’s his painting,’ Slider suggested.

‘When he sells one. I don’t suppose it’s that often. Anyway, he told me once it was his wife who had to take out the mortgage in her name, because he didn’t have enough equity in his salary to cover the loan.’

‘Have you met her?’

‘No, they don’t really go around together. She’s a high-up nurse and she works shifts. To tell you the truth, I think they’re having problems. But I don’t really know. You’d have to ask him about that. All I can say is, I’ve never seen them out together. Why do you want to know about Alex, anyway?’

‘No particular reason. He was just mentioned in passing in a conversation. One last thing. Can you tell me what you were doing on Sunday night?’

He entirely failed to be alarmed by the question. He laughed. ‘When did you last see your father, eh? Well, let me see. I got home Sunday morning from a party about four-ish, went to bed, got up about midday, went down the pub with the others and met some friends. One of them’s married with a family and everything, and he invited us back to his place in Holland Park for Sunday lunch. Stayed there for the rest of the day. Then about nine we went on to a party in Clapham, at a friend of Jeremy’s. He’s my flatmate, Jeremy? Jeremy, Jamie, Ben and me share this flat.’

‘You didn’t come back here to change or anything?’

‘No, you want to keep away from the area when the Carnival’s on,’ he said. ‘That’s why we were glad to go to Gary and Stella’s for Sunday lunch. So then the four of us went on to this party in Clapham and stayed there all night. We came back Monday morning about ten-ish, got cleaned up, and then Ben and Jamie went to see their parents, and Jeremy and I went out to see a friend who lives in Hampstead.’

‘Did you drive there?’

‘Tube. I don’t have a car. I don’t think it’s worth it in London. The parking’s horrendous.’

This chimed with something in Slider’s memory and he stared at the big, red painting for a moment until it clicked. Alex Markov had said almost the same thing. ‘How did you get that painting home on the tube?’ he asked. ‘It must have been awkward.’

Paulson turned round and looked at it. ‘Oh, I didn’t. Alex delivered it.’

‘Still must have been awkward on the tube.’

Paulson looked puzzled. ‘He brought it in his car.’

‘I thought he didn’t have one.’

‘
I
don’t know,’ Paulson said with a broad shrug. ‘He
came
in a car, that’s all I know. Maybe he borrowed one.’

‘Maybe that was it,’ Slider said. He stood up to take his leave. The alibi, given freely and unhesitatingly, as from the depths of a clear conscience, was eminently checkable, so Slider wasn’t going to check it. He hadn’t suspected Paulson of anything anyway. He had only hoped he might have been around to see something. But that was out.

At the door, Oliver Paulson became serious again, remembering what it was all about. ‘I can’t believe poor little Zellah got murdered,’ he said. ‘Why would anyone do that? I read in the paper you’d arrested a serial killer for it, but if it was a serial killer, why would you come round here asking me about Mike? You don’t think he had anything to do with it?’

‘Don’t you think he’s capable of it?’ Slider countered.

‘Well, he’s got a bit of a temper on him. I suppose he’s had to fight his way out a few times, coming from the Woodley South. But I always thought he was a decent bloke underneath. I mean, I wouldn’t have introduced him to my sister otherwise.’

Ah, that was it, Slider thought. He was feeling guilty for having brought Mike and Zellah together in the first place. Or maybe there had been things said at home, by the parents.

‘When it comes to unregulated passions, anyone can be capable of anything,’ Slider said neutrally.

‘I suppose so,’ Paulson said, still troubled. ‘But I wouldn’t have thought Mike would do something like that.
Was
that why you were asking about him?’

He evidently meant to have an answer. Slider said, ‘I’m asking about everyone in Zellah’s life. Trying to find out what she was really like.’

‘Good luck with that,’ Paulson said shortly. ‘She was a hard one to know, that one. An enigma.’

A riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma, Slider thought, going back to his car. Perhaps, as with Russia, the key lay in self-interest. He just had to find what, in Zellah’s case, that had been.

EIGHTEEN