Fell Purpose (39 page)

‘Do you think they did go all the way?’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said shortly. ‘The thing was, Zellah went along with it, competed with them, boasted even worse than them. I’m sure they were convinced
she
had. They thought she was terrific for it. For being the first. How could anyone be so shallow? I couldn’t understand why Zellah did it.’

‘Maybe she just wanted to be liked.’

‘For that? Why?’ She seemed angry about it.

‘Did she have a lot of other friends?’

‘Not really. I was her best friend, up till then. She wasn’t allowed to have girls home, or to go out much after school, so it made it difficult for her. She was always a bit of a loner.’

‘Well, doesn’t that explain why she might want to try to fit in with girls like Sophy and Chloë?’ Slider said.

He was also thinking
puberty
, but the onset of that was not something he could or would discuss with Frieda, who didn’t look as if she was much bothered with it yet.

‘But she had
me
,’ Frieda said. ‘Or she did until she took up with that awful Mike.’

‘Was he awful?’

‘
She
didn’t think so. She was mad for him. Sophy hated him. After that they didn’t hang around together so much. Oh, but then she remembered she
did
have another friend,’ she added with a hint of bitterness. ‘When it was convenient to her.’

‘You?’

‘I covered for her. When she wanted to see Mike, I let her pretend she was visiting me. It was one of the few things her father let her do. She’d say she was coming to see me after ballet on Saturday, or after school, but really she was seeing Mike.’

‘Do you think she was in love with him?’ Slider asked, stroking the cat. It had settled, couching on his lap, eyes closed with bliss.

She considered carefully. ‘I think she was
infatuated
,’ she said decidedly. It was almost comical, the contrast between the adult vocabulary, and the little-girl form before him. ‘She thought she was in love, but when the real thing came along, she realized it was different from what she felt for Mike.’ She looked at him sternly, determined to keep him straight. ‘She didn’t
say
all this to me, you understand. It’s what I
deduced
. She never spoke much about her feelings. She was a very
private
person, really. But she was mad about Mike, but when she met the new man, she dropped Mike like a hot potato. I almost felt sorry for him – not that I think he was the type to care. But she really, really loved the new man. It was different. I could see it was different.’

Slider was almost holding his breath. ‘And who was the new man?’

‘I don’t know,’ Frieda said.

Well, what had he hoped for? It was never that easy.

‘All I know,’ she went on, ‘is that he lived not far from here, because she spoke once about walking from here to his house. And he was a lot older than her. She said something about it being nice to be with a real grown-up and not just a boy like Mike. She went all dreamy-eyed when she mentioned him. But if ever I asked who he was, or anything about him, she clammed up. I got the
impression
,’ she said in her careful way, ‘that there was something wrong.’ She stared down at the dog for a moment, who wagged hopefully back, but her mind was elsewhere. ‘I know it’s a terrible thing to say,’ she said at last, looking up at him, ‘but I’ve wondered if . . . well, if he was
married
.’

‘What makes you think that?’

‘Oh, I don’t know. But if he wasn’t, why did it all have to be such a secret?’

‘Because her parents wouldn’t have liked her to have a boyfriend?’

‘Oh, I don’t mean secret from them.
Obviously
it had to be a secret from them,’ she said, shaking her head at his stupidity. ‘But why keep it a secret from me? She didn’t keep Mike a secret from me. Or from Sophy and Chloë. But I don’t think they even knew she
had
a new boyfriend.’

‘I don’t think they did either,’ Slider said encouragingly. ‘I think you knew Zellah much better than they did.’

‘I was her only real friend,’ she said bleakly, ‘but still she didn’t trust me enough to tell me about him. I wish I knew why. Nothing’s ever so bad if you can
understand
.’

‘Can you think of anything, anything at all, that she told you about the new boyfriend? Anything that might help us find him.’

Now her gaze sharpened behind the glasses. ‘Why do you want to find him? Do you think he was the one that . . . that killed her?’

‘I don’t know,’ Slider said, glad to be able to fall back on that. ‘But obviously we want to talk to anyone who knew her well, particularly in the last two or three months.’

‘Well, I can’t think of anything she said, apart from what I’ve told you. Mostly she just said how wonderful he was. And how he understood her. She said that
a lot.
’ She nodded at Slider emphatically. ‘She really thought he was her soul-mate. She didn’t like her parents much. They were always fighting over her. I’ve seen them with her, at parents’ day, and it was true. Everyone says how proud they were of her, but I don’t think they actually really
saw
her, as a person. They just wanted to own her. For reflected glory. You know,’ she added seriously, ‘I don’t think it could have been the new man that killed her. I mean, she loved him. And I suppose he must have loved her. So why would he?’

For all her intellectual maturity, she was still untried where emotions were concerned. She couldn’t conceive why love might lead to death.

Atherton was still there when Slider got back to the station, sitting on his windowsill.

‘I thought I told you to go home.’

‘With my boss going solo, risking his all out in the wilderness? No way,’ said Atherton. ‘You might have needed rescuing, and who else was going to go out with the barrel of brandy round his neck? Besides, you’ll want to hear this. Connolly?’

Connolly came in from the CID room with a piece of paper in her hand. ‘I got the gen on the car, sir,’ she said. ‘Two-year-old Toyota Corolla, colour sapphire black.’ She looked up from the paper. ‘That’s—’

‘I know what that is, thank you, Constable,’ he said. ‘I had a lecture earlier today from a career TDA artist.’

‘Registered keeper is a Miss Stephanie Barstowe, address 6 Shirland House, Bravington Road, Kensal Town. Bought new on finance from Kensal Motors, Harrow Road – payments all up to date so far. You asked about tickets – there’s half a dozen outstanding, all around London. No other violations. Insurance is with Liverpool Victoria, fully comp, fifty-pound windscreen excess, self and named driver covered. And,’ she looked up here, with an expression of triumph, ‘the named driver is Alexander Markov of the same address.’

Slider sat down behind his desk. ‘Go on.’

‘I got talking to another nurse in the same unit, and they
are
married, but she uses her maiden name. I suppose that’s because of her career – she’s manager of the intensive-care unit, so she’s a bit of a player. Also, I asked did Stephanie drive the car to work. Apparently she drives in when the weather’s bad, otherwise she cycles.’

‘The weather was fine on Sunday,’ Atherton said.

‘And I did a bit of checking with the management about her shifts. The parking tickets are all at times Stephanie was working. So someone else was driving the car at those times.’

‘You said the car under the railway bridge was a Toyota Corolla,’ Atherton said to Slider. ‘But I’m not sure where you’re going with this, or what made you connect the two. There must be hundreds of Corollas in the area.’

‘Just as there are Focuses,’ Slider replied, ‘but you were happy for it to be Wilding’s.’

‘Well, obviously, because it belongs to someone connected with the victim,’ he said, and stopped abruptly.

‘Sir,’ Connolly said, frowning as she tried to catch up, ‘I thought Markov said Zellah was a lezzer. It said in your notes—’

‘Classic misdirection,’ Slider said.

‘Hey, I said that,’ Atherton protested.

‘About a completely different subject. Markov threw out the suggestion about Zellah in the hope that I wouldn’t make a connection between him, Zellah and sex. He didn’t say she
was
a lesbian. He said he
wondered
if she had doubts about her sexuality, as many young girls do. He also told me that he
didn’t own a car
. And then he said it was hardly worth it in London. And he said his wife cycled to work. Every one of those statements is true. But he didn’t say he never
drove
a car, though that was the impression he hoped to leave.’

‘Misdirection,’ Connolly said. ‘I see. So you think . . .?’

Slider turned to Atherton. ‘Emily said Carmichael’s account of the last meeting with Zellah was so dumb it could almost be true.’

‘The thing about having two dates?’ he remembered.

‘It was school holidays. She couldn’t use the after-school activity excuse. The sleepover with Sophy and Chloë was her one chance to get in touch with the father of the baby,’ Slider went on. ‘She must have been desperate and terrified by then. Imagine if you were her, having to tell
that
father you were pregnant.’

‘Yes,’ Atherton said. ‘That would frighten a triple DSO.’

‘She couldn’t ring Markov from home. I don’t know if she tried to ring him from Sophy’s house. Maybe she did, and he wasn’t in, or his wife answered. I suspect she felt she had to see him face to face to tell him – it’s not something you can do over the phone.’

‘So where did Carmichael come into it?’ Atherton asked. ‘Was she really just using him for transport?’

‘I think she thought of him as a friend – someone she could talk to. She must have felt lonely, isolated with her problem.’

‘You got that right,’ Connolly said. ‘Couldn’t talk to her parents. And nobody would confide something like that to Sophy Cooper-Hutchinson.’

‘And I’ve learned enough about Frieda Mossman today to know she wouldn’t have confided in her, either,’ Slider said. ‘Not about that. At least Mike wouldn’t be shocked or disapproving. Probably she hoped to be able to talk to him. But he quickly showed he was just interested in sex,’ he said sadly. ‘So all that was left was to get in touch with Markov. Now, the scenario I’m working on is that she phoned Markov from Mike’s flat – he says she made a phone call. She told him she must see him. They agreed a time and a place – the fairground, ten o’clock. She had time to kill, so she got Mike to take her to the fair, and tried to have a good time.’

‘The condemned man eating a hearty meal?’ Atherton said.

‘Something like that.’ He thought of her going on the rides and screaming, hugging Mike’s arm to her, being a normal girlfriend for the last time in her life. He couldn’t blame her for using Carmichael. Hadn’t he used her? ‘But then she told Mike she was meeting someone else, and naturally enough he didn’t like that and they quarrelled.’

‘But,’ said Atherton, ‘the fat lady said the quarrel was later, near midnight.’

‘I’ve looked at the write-ups. She said there was
a
quarrel. The rifle-range man’s description matches Carmichael all right, but the fat lady said a tall man – Carmichael is not notably tall – older than Zellah – Carmichael doesn’t look particularly older than her – and she said he had brown hair, where Carmichael is notably dark. When Emily said that thing about the dumb excuse being true, I started to wonder if Zellah didn’t meet two men after all, and have two quarrels: one at ten, and a second, serious one at twelve.’

‘Yes,’ said Atherton, staring at nothing, ‘it works. She fights with Markov. She runs off across the Scrubs weeping, thinking her world is at an end. But after a while and some walking, she wonders if there isn’t still hope. She sees the Snogging Couple and asks to use their phone, rings Markov again, he comes to meet her.’

‘Meet, you see, not fetch,’ said Slider.

‘They have another row, she jumps out of the car, he chases her and kills her.’

They were silent.

‘But, sir,’ said Connolly, ‘if she told him she was up the pole the first time they met, why would he come to see her a second time? Why did they quarrel again? And why did that quarrel lead him to kill her?’

‘And why,’ Atherton said, ‘did he take a pair of tights with him when he went to meet her the second time?’

‘That,’ said Slider, ‘is something I think we’ll have to ask him.’

‘But first we need the phone records,’ Atherton said. ‘If it wasn’t Markov she phoned, the whole theory is a crock.’

‘We can’t expect to get them tonight. I think we should all go home and get a good night’s sleep.’

Atherton cocked his head. ‘Dollars to doughnuts
you
won’t sleep tonight.’