Body Line

THREE

Deliver Us from Ealing

‘Ade comes up clean, guv,’ Connolly said, leaning on his doorpost.

Coming back from far away, Slider hadn’t made sense of her sentence at first, and his drifting mind latched on to detergent. Comes up clean? Had there been a spillage in the CID room?

‘Hmm?’ he said neutrally, marking time.

‘She’s no criminal record,’ Connolly elaborated, and he fetched up to reality with a bump. ‘No large chunks a jingle floating around. Owes a coupla hundred on her credit card. No big recent purchases. And she rents: shares with three others, in Putney. I know the street, guv – I looked out that way when I first came to London – and it’s a bit of a kip, so she’s not spending on property. She works for Tangent Publishing in Brompton Road. Editorial assistant, which means she’s the office dogsbody and paid a pittance for the hope o’ glory. Fifteen thousand. And that’s before tax. So she has to make ends meet by stripping two nights a week.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘The woman’s twenty-seven! She’d want to cop on to herself before it’s too late.’

‘Did you speak to someone at Jiffies?’

‘The manager. Name a Williamson. A fine class of a man: pays the girls minimum wage and lets them keep their tips. He says no carry-on with the customers is allowed, but he doesn’t know what they get up to in their free time.’

‘A cautious citizen.’

‘It’s members only, so they get a big take at the door, and then there’s the price of the drinks – which you’d want to have seen,’ Connolly said. ‘So they must be raking it in. Wouldn’t want to get into trouble with the peelers for promoting prostitution.’ She checked her notes and went on, ‘Rogers was a newish member, joined last November. He gave another club – the Rochelle in Mayfair – as a reference. I checked with them. He’s been a member there three years.’

‘The Rochelle?’ Slider queried. It was new since his Central days.

‘High-end strip joint, with a casino attached. Members only. All crimson velvet and chandeliers – it’d appal you. Even the bouncers have double-barrelled names.’

‘So watching strippers is not a new hobby for Rogers,’ Slider mused. Could there have been something seedier in his background? Some little hobby or habit he could have been blackmailed for?

Connolly shook her head sadly. ‘What is it about men and nipples?’

Slider declined the bait. ‘So you think Aude’s out of it?’

Connolly was flattered to be asked her opinion. ‘She’s not deep in debt, and she’s not living on the pig’s back. Her story checks out, and I can’t find any medical connection. And flat-sharing’d make it hard to get up to any carry-on without getting caught out.’

‘All right. I don’t want to waste any more time on her if she’s just an accidental bystander. But we’ll need to keep tabs on her, in case we have more questions. Has she got family?’

‘She has parents, according to HR at Tangent. They’re her next of kin. They live in Guildford.’

‘That’ll do. See if she can go and stay with them for a few days when she comes out of hospital tomorrow. I know Mike Polman at Guildford. He owes me a favour. I’ll ask him to keep an eye on the house. She ought to be safe enough there.’

It was late when McLaren stuck his head round the door to say, ‘The first of the papers have come in from the house, guv.’

‘Right,’ said Slider, glancing at his watch. ‘Let’s have a quick look.’ So far, from the site they had culled a big zero. The street search had produced no gun or discarded clothing, and the canvass had drawn a blank. Nothing for which to pull an all-nighter. He might as well send them all home and save the overtime for another day.

He didn’t expect great things of the first bag, but there was treasure of a sort: the doctor’s birth, marriage and divorce certificates, tidily together in one envelope, taken from the top desk drawer.

‘Born fourth of June 1962 in Greasley in Nottingham,’ Atherton read out over Connolly’s shoulder. ‘Father’s down as clerk, insurance office. Humble beginnings for the Dirty Doctor.’

‘He was married in June 1988 to Amanda Jane Knox-Sturgess of The Lodge, Quickmoor Lane, Sarratt,’ Connolly continued. ‘Where’s that?’

‘Hertfordshire,’ said Atherton. ‘Carrot country.’

‘Ah, she’s a culchie, so!’ Connolly said innocently.

‘It’s a very expensive village,’ said Slider corrected. ‘The local church is one they used in Four Weddings and a Funeral. Waiting list from here to maternity. Lots of money around. Old families. County types. Plus, these days, commuting masters of the universe.’

‘Her father’s down as a solicitor,’ Atherton said. ‘That plus “The Lodge” suggests money all right.’

‘Definite step up for the lad from Greaseborough,’ McLaren commented.

‘Greasely,’ Slider said. ‘Very different place.’

‘Come on, guv,’ McLaren objected. ‘It’s all “oop north” to us.’

‘Here, the doctor’s address book.’ Slider threw it to him. ‘See if you can find the ex-wife in it.’

‘Shame the marriage didn’t last,’ Connolly commented, opening the Decree Absolute. ‘They were divorced in September 1999.’

‘Eleven years isn’t bad in these debased times,’ Atherton said. ‘No other marriage certificates in the envelope. Can we assume he’s been fancy-free for the last ten years?’

‘Maybe the ex-wife will know,’ Slider said. ‘If there were children, she would probably have kept in touch. I’m hoping she’ll be able to tell us who the next of kin is, anyway.’

McLaren said, ‘Guv, there’s an address and phone number in here under A for Amanda, no surname. Grange Road, Ealing.’

‘Look it up, get a surname,’ said Slider.

‘Where’s Grange Road?’ Atherton asked. He didn’t know Ealing as well as Slider did.

‘On the Common.’

‘Common? Bit of a comedown from a lodge in Sarratt.’

McLaren, at his own desk, was not long in finding the property on the electoral register. ‘The name’s Sturgess, guv, no Knox and no hyphen.’

‘So she’s reverted, and simplified,’ Atherton said. ‘What does that tell us?’

Slider gave him a look. ‘That she’s called Amanda Sturgess. Don’t strain yourself.’

McLaren went on. ‘Also listed at the property is a Robin Frith.’ He looked up. ‘Either she’s letting a room, or she’s shacking up.’

‘Either way, definitely letting herself slip,’ said Atherton. ‘Not the conduct we expect from the best people.’

‘Ex wives can be bitter,’ Slider said, ignoring him. ‘Apart from the next-of-kin issue, she could be a suspect. We’ll have to visit her.’

Connolly was eager. ‘Oh guv, can I go?’

Slider looked at his watch again. ‘It’s after quitting time. I’ll go myself. Anyway, it’s out in my direction.’

‘I’ll come with you,’ Atherton said. He caught Slider’s look. ‘What? It’s all right, I don’t expect overtime. Emily’s not back until tomorrow so I’ve got nothing to go home for.’

‘Play your cards right and you might get invited to supper,’ Slider said.

The house was a two-storey Victorian semi-detached – which description did not come near to expressing the size of it. Red brick and white stone edgings, enormous sash windows, a bay window on the ground floor; a small window in the tall, pointed gable indicated there would be servants’ rooms in the attic. Counting them, it would be a five-or six-bedroom house. And from the state of the outsides Slider could tell that all the houses along here had been refurbished. Given the proximity to Ealing Common they would be very expensive. Not so much of a comedown after all.

The woman who came to the door could only be Amanda Knox-Sturgess. Slider had subconsciously been expecting Penelope Keith from The Good Life, and she didn’t disappoint him. She was tall – too tall for a woman, probably five-eleven – with a long and prominent nose and not too much chin. Oddly, she still managed to look reasonably attractive despite these handicaps, and Slider put that down to her immaculate turnout. Her hair was brown and subtly highlighted, in a smooth short bob, held back by an Alice band; her make-up was perfect; and she wore a navy skirt, blue-and-white striped shirt, low-heeled court shoes, large false pearl earrings and a string of large pearl beads.

That she was not glad to be disturbed was immediately apparent.

‘Yes?’ she snapped, her face fixed in an expression of impenetrable hauteur.

‘Amanda Sturgess?’ Slider asked politely.

Her expression changed to one of suspicion and dislike. Her eyes flicked to Atherton, rapidly assessing his suit; and, strangely, this seemed to deepen her aversion. ‘If you’re from the Bible College, you’re wasting your time. My religion is not open to discussion.’

Slider winced. Oh, poor Atherton, he thought. The Hugo Boss wouldn’t be getting another outing any time soon. ‘We’re police officers, madam,’ he said, showing his brief, before she could slam the door. She inspected it without touching it; Atherton’s did not merit even a glance. ‘I’m sorry to trouble you but we’d like to speak with you. May we come in for a moment?’

Atherton noticed that, as well as using his most deferential tone, he had allowed a very slight hint of a country accent to creep in. He had used this before, to disarm ‘county’ types, but Atherton was never sure if it was deliberate or instinctive.

Perhaps Sarratt didn’t count as ‘county’. There was no thaw. ‘What about?’ she demanded.

‘I’d rather not talk about it on the doorstep, madam.’ Slider, gently persuasive.

‘Tell me what it’s about, or I shall close the door.’ Amanda Sturgess, magnificently unpersuaded.

‘It’s about your former husband, David Rogers.’

For a moment something flickered through her eyes that might have been alarm, but then there followed overt and sighing exasperation. Overdone? ‘What’s he been up to now?’ Interesting, Slider thought. He’d been up to things before? ‘As you point out,’ she went on, ‘he is my ex-husband. I know nothing about his present exploits. I can’t help you.’

‘We’re hoping you can help us with some background information,’ Slider said, and threw in another ‘madam’ for good measure. He had dropped the slight burr now, Atherton noted. Smart and workmanlike was the way to go with this dame. ‘We shan’t keep you long.’

He could do as good an unyielding as her any day, and did it now. Unwillingly, she let them in. The house had been refurbished to a high standard of what passed these days for luxury – that is, all the floors had been stripped and polished and left bare, the walls were painted white, the furniture was modern and minimal, and an extravagant number of walls had been knocked out, so that the downstairs into which they were led formed a vast L shape with the sitting-room, the short leg, leading through to a kitchen-diner that stretched across the whole back of the house, and had glass doors across most of the width. Slider guessed they would be both sliding and folding, so that in summer almost the entire back of the house could be opened on to the patio. If ever the weather was hot enough. For the rest of the year, it seemed to him, the set-up would be pointedly un-cosy. It struck him that the current fashion for vast open spaces inside houses was an import from a country with a very different climate. But of course, the Amanda Knox-Sturgesses of this world had never set great store by comfort.

Her heels clacked aggressively on the bare boards; Slider’s and Atherton’s police rubber soles were soundless behind her. No cat or dog came to greet them; the air smelled only of potpourri, not supper; there was no visible food preparation going on in the kitchen; and the sunless rooms were chilly. It was not Slider’s idea of a home; but he was a farm boy from the sticks, so what did he know?

She turned to face them at the point where the sitting-room turned into the dining end of the kitchen and, menacingly tall under the RSJ, said, ‘Very well. Please be brief. What has David done now?’

No please-sit-down, no cuppa. There was nothing for it: Slider said, ‘I’m sorry to have to tell you that he’s dead.’

He was watching her face, and it went stationary with shock; though again he felt there was a flicker of something – guilt or fear? – before she regained her icy mask. ‘I suppose he crashed his car. He always was a careless driver,’ she said as if indifferently, but she was not unaffected. Her eyes seemed blank, and her voice was by the tiniest degree not steady. She sat abruptly in the nearest armchair. Thus licensed, Slider and Atherton sat too.

‘One of the things we hoped you might be able to tell us,’ Slider said, sidestepping the car crash thing, ‘was, who is his next of kin? He seems to have been living alone. Did he remarry after your divorce?’

‘Neither of us remarried,’ she said, a little absently, surveying some inner landscape.

‘So you did keep in touch with him,’ Slider said. She looked up sharply. ‘If you knew he hadn’t remarried, you must have had some contact with him.’

‘We sent birthday and Christmas cards. And occasionally we spoke on the phone – about once a year. He would have told me if he was getting married. But that’s all. I haven’t seen him in years, and I know nothing about his present life.’

‘Are his parents alive?’ Slider asked, pursuing the next-of-kin line.

‘No. His father died in nineteen-eighty-eight and his mother in ninety-four. They were quite elderly when they had him.’

‘Brothers and sisters?’

‘He was an only child. And his parents were only children as well. He had a quite remarkable lack of relatives. It made his side of the church look very empty at our wedding.’

An extraneous comment! Slider was glad of this evidence of softening. ‘At Holy Cross?’ he suggested beguilingly.

‘You know Sarratt?’ she asked, but not warmly – almost suspiciously, as if she suspected he was sucking up to her.

Which he was, of course, though she wasn’t supposed to know it. ‘I know that part of the world. It’s a lovely church. And you and David didn’t have any children?’ Somehow he knew that: there was nothing maternal about her shape or her manner.

‘No,’ she said shortly, and in such a voice that it was impossible to pursue the subject.

‘Then it looks as though you are the nearest thing he had to next of kin,’ Slider concluded.

‘I am his ex-wife,’ she reminded him again, sharply. ‘I am not responsible for anything to do with him.’

‘Not legally, of course,’ Slider said, as though there was another kind of responsibility. She eyed him and opened her mouth to retort but he got in first – soothingly. ‘I was just wondering whether there was anyone else who needed to be told about his death.’

‘And you were wondering who’s going to pay for the funeral, I suppose,’ she suggested tartly.

‘Oh, I dare say there’ll be enough in his estate to cover that. He seems to have been living in comfort.’

This seemed to interest her. ‘You’ve found money?’

‘I didn’t mean that – just that his style of living suggests he was comfortably-off.’

She looked down at her hands and then up again. ‘I thought perhaps he had got into financial trouble and committed suicide.’

‘It wasn’t suicide,’ Slider said.

She surveyed his face keenly. ‘You’re sure of that? David wasn’t a very – resolute person. Liable to look for the easy way out when things – set him back. Not a striver against misfortune.’

Why was she keen to sell them on suicide, Slider wondered. ‘He didn’t kill himself,’ he said.

‘Sometimes these things can be made to look like an accident,’ she said, and then hurried on, as though she had come to a decision. ‘You needn’t worry about the funeral. I’ll make all the arrangements, if that helps. I don’t suppose there’s anyone else who—’

‘Cares for him?’ he suggested gently.

‘I don’t care for him,’ she said. ‘I did once, but that was a long time ago. However, there is such a thing as common decency.’

She hadn’t looked at Atherton since they’d sat down. She had forgotten him. And he could see she was ready to talk to Slider. He wondered again how Slider did it. Animal magic – pheromones – mesmerism? Something.

‘He was an attractive man,’ Slider suggested.

‘You don’t know how attractive.’ She stopped abruptly as something occurred to her. ‘You haven’t said yet how he died. Was it a car crash?’

Slider held her eyes. They were not blue, as he had first thought, but greenish-grey. Unusual, but not very – what was the word? – sympathique, in the French sense. Better suited to expressing froideur than warmth. ‘I’m sorry to tell you that he was murdered.’

For the first time she lost her composure. Colour drained from her face, and she looked suddenly older. Her lips rehearsed some words she didn’t speak. At last she got a grip. ‘How can you be sure?’

‘He was shot in the back of the head,’ Slider said.

The words were as brutal as the shot itself.

‘Oh my God,’ she said, staring at him as if he had slapped her. She put both her hands to her mouth. But evidently her mind was still working. After a moment she said from behind them, ‘Was it over some woman?’

‘That’s what we have to find out,’ Slider said, ‘and it means going into his background, which is why I hoped you would be able to help us. The more we know about him, the better chance we have of finding who did this.’

‘There’ll be a woman at the bottom of it,’ she said, and now there was a hint of bitterness in her tone. ‘There always was. That’s what killed our marriage – women. He couldn’t resist them. And they couldn’t resist him. To some extent he wasn’t to blame. They threw themselves at him. He was so handsome, so charming. He had a way of making you feel you were the only person in the world who mattered. And of course it was sincere – at the time. It took me years to understand that. He wasn’t pretending. It was just that he made every woman feel like that.’

‘It must have been a useful thing for a doctor.’

She didn’t take it amiss. ‘Yes. The ultimate bedside manner. He ought to have been a psychiatrist. Or even a dentist. Women would have flocked to him.’

‘What was his field?’

She seemed slightly put out by the question. ‘Urology,’ she said flatly.

‘Not glamorous,’ Slider sympathized. But lucrative – and more male patients than female, he reflected. She should have been glad about that. ‘Was he ambitious?’ he asked. ‘I suppose he must have been to get as far as he did. He came from quite humble beginnings, didn’t he?’

She studied him a moment, as if to weigh the implications of his question, and then, oddly, glanced at Atherton. He took the cue. ‘On his birth certificate, it said his father was an insurance clerk.’

She nodded, as if that explained it. ‘He grew up in a terraced workman’s cottage. Two up, two down. He used to make jokes about D.H. Lawrence, but it wasn’t quite that bad. Greasely’s quite a pretty, country place. And his parents were respectable working people, very keen for him to get on. He went to the grammar school, and got a grant to go to university. Which is where I met him.’

Slider had not pictured her a student; and he became aware that he had noticed subliminally that there was not a single book on display in the immaculate sitting-room. On the shelves in the chimney alcove there were only ornaments. ‘Which one?’ he asked.

‘Edinburgh. He wanted to go to London but couldn’t get in. I chose Edinburgh to get as far away from home as possible. So we were both rather lost sheep.’

‘What did you study?’ Atherton asked, mainly to keep her going, but also out of curiosity. He couldn’t see her as a scholar, either.

‘Philosophy,’ she said, surprising them both. English – the easy option – was what they would have betted. ‘Daddy said it was a waste of time, because it couldn’t lead to a career. And Mummy didn’t want me to have a career anyway, so she didn’t want me to go to university at all. Least of all Edinburgh. She was afraid I’d meet someone unsuitable there. Which I did, in her sense. So they were both right.’

‘And you were attracted to David right away?’ Slider asked.

‘I admired him for the way he’d got over his disadvantages and moved himself into a different world. Without being resentful. There were other working-class students, of course, but they tended to be – what’s that word they use nowadays?’

‘Chippy?’ Atherton suggested.

‘Oh yes. There were a lot of chippy people around back then. But David wasn’t the least like that. He loved the fact that I came from a privileged home. He made me feel it was something to be proud of. So we – clung together, I suppose. And then – well, he was tremendously attractive. Thick, black hair, blue eyes, wonderfully athletic. And that charm of his . . .’

‘You fell in love,’ Slider suggested. She assented by a slight nod. ‘But you didn’t get married for quite some time.’

She sharpened. ‘You seem to know an awful lot about me.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Slider said. ‘We found the marriage certificate, you see, so we know the date.’

She sighed. ‘There was a lot of opposition at home. Mummy was horrified because he wasn’t “one of us”. Daddy insisted David must prove himself before we could get married. They hoped I’d meet someone else if they made me wait.’ Her mouth hardened as she said it. ‘For five years they threw eligible men of the “right” sort at me, made me go to every dance and party, tried to pretend David was just one of the field. It wasn’t until he was a senior houseman, and Bernard Webber got him a registrar slot, that they gave in.’

Interesting, Slider thought. She would have been of age on leaving university, and could have married him then, but it did not seem to have occurred to her to do it without permission. Or was it a matter of money? It wasn’t in his remit to ask, though he’d have liked to.

‘We got married,’ she went on, ‘and he proved them wrong – as far as career and income went. Mummy always looked down her nose at him rather, but Daddy respected him for what he achieved. I always kept the women thing away from them, until the end. But they wouldn’t have cared about that, anyway, as long as there wasn’t a scandal. They would have told me not to make a fuss. And I didn’t, for a long time. But in the end, it just wore me down.’ She met Slider’s eyes. ‘You don’t know what it’s like. The constant, constant—’ Her eyes glittered with unshed tears. ‘The lies. The excuses. The “conferences”. The “medical emergencies”. The tawdriness of it all! The way those girls behaved – no restraint. No self-respect. Notes left in his pockets. Telephone calls – the ones where they hang up when I answer and the ones where they pretend to be calling from work. The ones who sat in their cars outside the house hoping to catch a glimpse of him. The ones who were friendly to me at functions to show there was nothing going on and the ones who glared furiously at me across the room. The ones who showed up at the house in tears. The ones who thought he would marry them. They didn’t understand the first thing about him. He would never have left me. And I’d have put up with it, if it was just an occasional thing, if it was kept out of sight. But it just – never – stopped.’

She looked around her helplessly, and Atherton, divining her problem, jumped up and brought the box of tissues to her from the coffee table. She looked at him properly for the first time as she took one and said, ‘Thanks.’ He thought she might have been quite attractive if she ever smiled.

‘It must have been very hard for you,’ Slider said when she had dried her eyes and discreetly blown her nose.

‘It was. I did care for him, you see, and in a way he couldn’t help it. He was just made that way. He loved sex, and he couldn’t resist when it was offered. And of course a doctor gets offered lots of it. He was a very uncomplicated person, really. But I just couldn’t go on. He cried when he moved out. I hated that. We sold the house – we had a lovely place in Chipperfield – and the London flat, and divided the money, and I bought this house.’

‘Did he pay you maintenance?’

‘No. I told you, we shared the capital. I didn’t want anything else from him. I wanted to cut him out of my life, and that’s what I did. Made my own life, concentrated on my own career.’

‘Which is?’ Slider asked.

‘I co-own an employment agency – Sturgess and Beale, in Chiswick. We specialize in placing disabled people.’

It was a bit of a conversation-stopper. ‘That must be very – rewarding,’ Slider managed.

‘It is,’ she said, back in control and blanking them out again. ‘Since then, as I say, I have had nothing to do with David, beyond the occasional phone call. I can’t even recall when the last one was. Last year some time. So I don’t know what he’s been getting up to.’

‘Do you know where he’s been working recently?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘I have no idea how he supports himself. He could be a taxi driver for all I know.’

‘Has he ever suggested to you that he had money worries?’

‘No. I imagine he does all right, since he’s still living in that house in Shepherd’s Bush. I know that cost quite a bit when he bought it. But he wouldn’t ask me for money anyway. He’d get short shrift if he did! When I think of what he made me give up . . . I loved our life – the parties, the holidays – living in the country – our lovely house. And it’s come to this.’ She looked around her bitterly. ‘A semi-detached in Ealing. That’s all I have to show for all those years.’

What was so bad about that? Slider thought. It was a pretty nice house. He made a non-committal noise.

She looked at him. ‘And now he’s dead. Shot. He shamed me, but I wouldn’t have wanted it to come to that. You’ll find there’s a woman at the bottom of it. Some jealous woman or some angry husband. I suppose he’s gone out in a blaze of glory, in a way. I don’t know if that isn’t an ending he’d have approved of.’

They were interrupted at that moment by the sound of a key in the front door, and her faced snapped back instantly into hauteur, salted with a hint of annoyance. She rose to her feet, forcing Slider, who’d been brought up that way, to stand as well. A man came in from the hall: a lean, well-built man – though a couple of inches shorter than her – in his forties, with a deeply weather-tanned face, unruly dark hair and bright-blue eyes. He was wearing a donkey-jacket over a navy guernsey, heavy cord trousers and mud-stained work boots.

‘Oh,’ he said. ‘Sorry. I didn’t know you had visitors.’ His accent, while not as cut-glass as Amanda’s, was quite pure – a surprise, given his clothing, and hands which had seen manual labour in the recent past. He saw Atherton looking at them and put them behind his back.

‘These gentlemen are just leaving,’ Amanda said. There was a pink spot – of annoyance or embarrassment, or both – in her cheek. Slider stood his ground sturdily and smiled enquiringly until she was forced to say, ‘Robin Frith, an old friend of mine. These gentlemen are police officers. It seems David’s had an accident.’

She gave him a glare that would have turned Medusa to stone, and a flick of the head which made him say, ‘Well, I won’t interrupt,’ and absent himself hastily.

Slider could hear him going upstairs; and Amanda’s body language was urging them towards the door.

‘I mustn’t keep you,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry I’m not able to tell you anything useful.’

‘Oh, you’ve been very helpful, thank you,’ Slider said, but more to give her something to think about than because it was true.

‘Odd,’ Atherton said when they had left. ‘Don’t you think it was odd?’

‘What, specifically? She’s an unusual woman.’

‘Her attitude to David Rogers, for a start.’

‘In particular?’ said Slider.

‘Well, she’s driven by his womanizing into divorcing him, but she doesn’t make him pay alimony. It shows an unhealthy lack of desire for vengeance.’

‘Unless she’s trying to make it seem that she has no desire for vengeance. Or for his money.’

‘You think she could be guilty?’

‘Anyone could be guilty. I’m sure she’s not telling us everything.’

‘What she said did seem inconsistent,’ Atherton agreed. ‘She complains about her lifestyle but didn’t want his money. She’s confident he’d tell her if he got married, but says she doesn’t know where he’s been working. I think that there was more contact between them than she’s letting on.’

‘Probably. But why hide it?’ Slider said.

‘Because she’s guilty?’

‘I don’t know,’ Slider mused. ‘She obviously still had feelings for him. A mixture of sentiment and bitterness. And she really seemed shocked by his death.’

‘Could be shock that we’d come to her so soon. And you admit the bitterness.’

‘Hmm. But they’ve been divorced for ten years. Wouldn’t she need a more recent motive to want to do away with him?’

‘She seemed to be deliberately distancing herself from him and his money,’ Atherton said. ‘But wouldn’t it be interesting if it turned out he’d left everything to her? That would answer a lot of questions. “He shamed me but I’ve had the last laugh.” Revenge eaten cold and so on.’

‘I wonder what she is living on? This agency of hers? I suppose we’ll have to check if it’s pukka.’

‘It would be a brilliant front if it wasn’t,’ Atherton said. ‘So utterly worthy you’d feel like a complete shit asking questions. And she obviously didn’t want to talk about it.’

‘But equally, if she’s a genuine philanthropist she wouldn’t want to talk about it. That would be blowing her own trumpet.’

‘You always have to see both sides, don’t you? Well, and what about old Mellors coming in? Did she blush! Old friend, indeed – and he went straight upstairs. She’s shacking up with him.’

‘Quite possibly.’

‘It looks as if she has a bit of a thing for horny-handed sons of the soil. OK –’ he forestalled Slider – ‘Rogers was a doctor, but he started out with coal dust in his hair.’

‘Greasely, not Greaseborough,’ Slider said, for the second time of what he was afraid would be many. ‘Different sort of place entirely.’

‘Still, she seems to like sinning below her station.’

‘Did you catch the smell from Frith when he came in?’ Slider pondered.

‘We don’t all have a hooter like yours. What was it?’

‘Horses.’

Atherton didn’t know what to make of that bit of information. They had reached the car. The gritty wind, rollicking unchecked across Ealing Common, slapped a greasy sandwich paper against the side window, just missing his sleeve. He peeled it off with flinching fingertips. The homeward-bound traffic was pouring across the junction into Hanger Lane and backing up, like water pouring into a jar. Dusk had come, and it wasn’t any warmer, and he still didn’t have an overcoat on. He shivered, and his mind turned naturally to crackling fires, old oak beams, naff crimson carpets and the sultry gleam of horse-brasses.

‘Fancy a pint?’ he asked.

‘I thought you’d never ask,’ Slider said, unlocking the door.