Body Line

FIVE

Frith Element

There is a certain amount of luck in police work – not so much in finding things, but in finding them early on in the search rather than late. Connolly, charged with finding out about Robin Frith, had begun by looking up the last census for Amanda Sturgess’s house at Ealing Common, and had found Frith listed there, all present and correct, in 2001. That was only a bit more than a year after the divorce. Quick work. Was your woman maybe doing the nasty with Frith all along, while blaming the Dirty Doctor for not being able to keep his lad in his pants?

Even more interesting was that Frith’s profession in 2001 was listed as riding instructor. Given the Guv’s description of Amanda as a sort of rich man’s Margo Leadbetter, it was either dopey or dotey – she wasn’t sure which – that she should have been shacking up with the stable boy, so to speak. A bit of Lady Constance and Mellors in that carry-on. Of course, that was nine years ago, so he might have moved on to a different profession by now. But then she remembered that Atherton had said the Guv had smelled horses when Frith came in, and given the reputation of the Guv’s nose, maybe he was still at it. Riding instructor? You wouldn’t make a lot of jingle at that. Maybe he was just the lodger after all. Stranger things had happened.

Of course, he might just be riding for a hobby; but if he was still teaching Thelwell kids to fall off ponies, where was the stable? Hyde Park? Richmond Park? Somewhere out west of London, Uxbridge, Denham, whatever? The field was huge. She started west of Ealing and worked a sort of arc northwards round London, but got no nibbles. It was when she had got as far as Harefield that the word Sarratt on the map caught her eye. Amanda had said Frith was an old friend. She came from Sarratt. And Sarratt was a country place where they’d just as like have horses. Give it a try. What harm?

She found the right place at the first attempt: a stable just outside Sarratt called Hillbrow Equestrian Centre. She knew it was the right place because right there on the website at the top under the title it said, ‘Proprietor: Robin Frith BHSI.’ What did BHSI stand for, she wondered. Big Hairy Sappy Ijit, maybe. It was a grand class of a place: swanky-looking stables with a clock-tower yoke in the middle of the roof. Indoor manège, all-weather outdoor school, cross-country course. Offered tuition in cross-country, dressage and showjumping, as well as basic lessons. Also did livery. Young horses trained. Children a speciality, hacks in the beautiful Chiltern countryside, blah blah blah. Maybe with all that going on, he was making some money, he wasn’t just a no-hoper after all.

‘I used to ride when I was a kid,’ she told Slider when she took it to him. ‘Summer hollyers in Connemara and Kerry. And not just beach ponies – I went in for gymkhanas, even did a bit of cross-country once. So I can talk the talk, guv. If I went to this place saying I wanted to take it up again, sure I could find out something about the boss.’ To his apparently doubtful look she added, ‘Most of the people who work at stables are females. If your man Frith is a bit of a Bob, they’ll all be secretly in love with him. They’ll be gagging to talk about him to someone.’

‘I don’t doubt you could get them to talk,’ Slider said. ‘I’m just wondering if it’s the best use of your time.’

‘Well, guv, the ex-wife’s the only connection we have, and we know the deed was done by a man. If they’ve been shacked up such a long time and she did want the doctor done, who’s she going to turn to? And you did say he’d dark hair and was wearing work boots, and that’s all we know about the killer.’

‘All true.’ Slider sighed. ‘Well, we don’t have such a hell of a lot of leads, so you might as well find out what you can.’

‘Thanks, guv.’ She turned away eagerly, and he called after her.

‘But remember it is a village, where gossip spreads like wildfire, so don’t go giving anyone the idea that Frith is a suspect, OK?’

‘You can trust me, guv. I’ve just got a feeling there’s something queer about the set-up, Lady Connie and the gamekeeper, and him moving in so quick after the divorce. There’s a story there.’

‘I’m all for stories,’ Slider said. ‘As long as they lead us somewhere.’

From the way Fathom bounced into Slider’s room, bringing with him the faint fragrance of sweat mingled with Obsession for Men, it was obvious he had not come simply to chalk up another NTR from the Front.

‘Guv, I think I’ve got something!’

‘All right, I’m buying. In fact, I’ll have two.’

‘Come again?’ The large, excitable lad was not very quick on his mental toes.

Slider waved it away. ‘What have you got?’ He enunciated clearly for the hard of thinking.

Fathom presented a video cassette. ‘CCTV,’ he said proudly. ‘Well, you know the Aude female said when she was hanging off the balcony, she saw the perp go down the end of Hofland and turn left?’

‘Yes, into Masbro Road. But don’t call him “the perp”. You’re not on CSI.’

‘Sorry, guv. Well, I was on the canvass and I’m going down Masbro in the same direction – like as if I’d turned left out of Hofland – and I get this feeling someone’s looking at me. You know what I mean. I looks round and I see this security camera. It takes a minute to register—’

‘I’m sure it did,’ Slider murmured.

‘There’s this school down the end of the road.’

‘Yes, Masbro Primary.’

‘Well, the camera’s in the school yard, high up on a pole. I s’pose they’ve all got security problems these days. But I reckon if this one’s aimed at the school-yard walls, maybe there might be a bit of the street in it as well. So I goes in and talks to the school seckertree, and she lets me have a look at the tapes. And this is Mundy’s.’

‘Stop hanging it out,’ Slider said. ‘Can you see anything?’

‘Yes, guv. That’s what I’m telling you.’

Slider grabbed the tape and walked rapidly through the CID room to the cubby where they kept the viewing equipment, gathering a little trail of his firm as he went. It was the usual sort of security video, grey and grainy, with the date and time in the corner. The view was the brick wall dividing the school yard from the street, with the iron gate in the middle of it; but true enough, the camera had been set high enough to see over the wall as well, and a section of the street, heavily parked on both sides, was visible, with the junction with Hofland Crescent in the distance.

Using the time cue, Slider ran it forward to six fifteen. There were few people about, just the occasional man or woman walking jerkily down the street on their way to the tube, and the odd car passing. The cue ran on towards six twenty.

‘There!’ said Fathom. He had the benefit of having viewed the tape a few times already. The rest of them squinched up their eyes and prayed. A small figure had appeared in the distance, apparently leaping out of nowhere, because of the way these tapes took exposures with breaks in-between. As he jerked towards the camera, it could be seen that he was wearing dark trousers and a blouson-type top.

Right place and roughly the right time. It could be their man. Slider wasn’t getting excited yet. He almost did when the figure reached under his jacket – were they going to see him dump the gun? – but what he got out was something small enough to conceal in his palm. Next minute, it became obvious what it was, for the man squeezed between two parked cars into the road, then passed along the offside of the front one and bent to aim the key and plip the door open. He got in, backed and filled a bit to get an angle, and drove away in the direction he had been walking, the bulk of the car disappearing below the line of the school wall and out of shot.

The breathless silence was broken.

‘We got something at last.’

‘Good on yer, Fathom.’

‘Brill, Jezza!’

‘It could be our man.’

‘Can you see the number?’

Slider, ever cautious, said, ‘We can’t be sure it’s him.’

‘There aren’t that many people around,’ Atherton said. ‘And he must have come out from Hofland – you could see he didn’t come from further down the road.’

‘Guv, there’s something else,’ Fathom said eagerly. ‘If you go back a bit further, you can see him arrive. He had to park there, it was the only space. He’s trying to look normal, he just takes the space, and walks, not hurrying I mean, up the road and disappears down Hofland. But here’s the thing – he arrives about ten past six, and no one else arrives at that time. So it’s gotter be him, hasn’t it?’

Slider ran the tape back further and watched for himself.

The man sat in the car a few minutes before he got out, but they couldn’t see what he was doing. ‘What’s he up to?’ Swilley complained.

‘Psyching himself for the deed? Putting on gloves?’ Atherton offered.

‘He’d made the appointment for six fifteen,’ Hollis observed, ‘and he wanted to be on time.’

‘What the hell did it matter?’ Atherton complained. ‘Who was going to argue about a minute either way?’

‘I s’pose he’s just efficient.’

‘Bloody ’ell, that’s creepy,’ said McLaren. He watched the man reappear, returning from Hofland Crescent. ‘You can’t see his face properly,’ he complained. ‘He’s got his head down. Do you reckon he knew the camera was there?’

‘No,’ said Atherton. ‘He wouldn’t have parked there if he had.’

‘Nowhere else to park,’ Swilley pointed out.

‘He was early enough to have parked further off.’

‘It was cold,’ Slider reminded them, still watching the tape. ‘And windy. He’s hunched into his collar, that’s all.’

‘And he wasn’t very long. Was there time for him to be the murderer?’ Swilley asked, worried.

‘It doesn’t take long to shoot someone,’ Slider said. ‘Also, Miss Aude said that while she was hanging off the balcony, she heard some kind of beeper go off. I’m wondering if this man set himself a specific time-limit to do his search after shooting Rogers – say, two minutes – to make sure he was away before anyone came.’

‘But no one heard anything,’ Fathom complained.

‘He couldn’t know they wouldn’t,’ Slider said. ‘If someone had heard the gunshot and called the police, the response would have been rapid. Also there might have been hidden alarms he knew nothing about. This man was so precise he sat in his car to make sure he arrived exactly on time. Setting himself a time limit on his search fits in with that.’

‘That’s true,’ Atherton said. ‘And we don’t know yet what it was he was searching for.’

‘Or if he found it,’ Swilley concluded.

‘Damn, with all this talking I missed it,’ Slider said, and ran the tape back, then forward again, watching the man walk towards the camera. ‘Ah,’ he said, with immense satisfaction, ‘this was the bit I wanted. I thought I was right.’ He waited until the figure squeezed between the two cars again and froze the image. ‘Look.’

They looked in silence. It was McLaren who got it. ‘He’s put his hand on the bonnet, the plonker.’

There it was, the pale starfish outlined on the dark metal of the bonnet of the car parked behind his own. An instinctive movement to balance himself as he squeezed through the inadequate space. And after he had driven away, the parked car’s number was quite clearly visible.

‘Chances are it’s a resident’s car,’ Slider said, ‘and if they haven’t washed it since then—’

‘Cars get washed on Sundays,’ Fathom said hopefully.

‘And he wasn’t wearing surgical gloves,’ Slider added, and a few crests fell.

‘And, of course, we still have to find him,’ Atherton pointed out.

‘But if we do,’ said McLaren.

‘And we get a print off the bonnet,’ said Hollis.

‘We’d have a piece of concrete evidence against him,’ Slider finished. ‘Let’s get this tape to the lab, get it enhanced, see if we can get the number of his car, and get some stills made.’

Everyone was more cheerful. ‘It’s a breakthrough,’ McLaren said. ‘Good on yer, Jezza!’ and slapped Fathom so hard on the back his teeth clicked together.

‘It may be,’ Slider said. But he couldn’t be churlish with the lad, who, to be fair, didn’t sparkle all that often. ‘Well done, Fathom.’

Connolly, unaware of all the excitement she was missing, had made her way out to Sarratt, shocked to discover how far away it was and how long it took her to get there. Your man Frith’d want to find a job nearer, she thought, or make Lady Constance move back home: it was a hell of a commute.

She found the stables without difficulty, and saw at once it was a superior establishment, not just from the grandness of the buildings, but the quality of the horses’ heads looking out over the doors. Like most stables it seemed deserted, though a chained dog emerged from a kennel at one end of the yard and barked in a bored fashion, wagging at the other end without much hope that this incursion would lead to a nice walk, any more than any previous one had.

Connolly walked over to what she surmised was the office, and found that abandoned too. As well as the usual pegboard covered with rosettes, there were a lot of photographs on the wall, of triumphal moments for the stable, she supposed. A child on a palomino pony receiving a cup – presumably for showing, given the exaggerated backward seat. An old black-and-white glossy of a dark young man on a big horse soaring over a show jump. Press photo, she reckoned: an amateur would be lucky to get an action shot like that. A young woman in a crash cap bending from the saddle to receive a rosette from a woman in powder-blue coat and hat and unsuitable shoes: cross-country, to judge by the mud liberally coating the horse’s legs and splashed on the girl’s beaming face. A dark-haired man, also mud spattered, on his own two feet, holding the reins of a steaming horse and smiling into the camera, his hair blown by a winter wind. A faint similarity suggested this was the same man as the earlier showjumper; and there were two other photos of him as well, receiving prizes. If this was your man Frith, Connolly thought, he was definitely ridey. No wonder Lady Connie wanted him. And fair play to her, she must have something herself, if he was still with her after nine years. Either she was hot stuff in the scratcher, or she had some other hold on him, because a hunky Bob like him, surrounded by horse-mad girls, would never be short of something to sling his leg over, and she wasn’t talking about the horses.

A shadow came over the doorway and she turned to see a young woman in breeches, boots and a thick sweater, with a weather-reddened face and the usual scraggly blonde hair, dragged back into a thin tail, who asked, ‘Can I help you?’

Connolly did her bit. ‘Hi. Yeah – I used to ride a lot, but I haven’t done it for a few years and I want to get back into it. I was thinking of getting my own horse, but I thought maybe a few lessons first’d be a good idea, to get me back in the way of it. It’s cross-country I’m really interested in. I understand you do training, too – the horse and the rider?’

‘Oh yes, we’ve coached some of the Olympic team here,’ she said proudly.

‘Is that right?’ Connolly sounded impressed. ‘It is you that’s the coach?’

‘Well, I do a bit, but it’s really Robin. He’s brilliant. He’s won Badminton twice himself.’ Her eyes took on a dedicated look as they drifted towards the photograph with the windswept hair. ‘That’s him with Top Gun – you must have heard of him.’

‘Wow, yeah,’ Connolly said fervently. ‘Great horse. But Badminton’s as much about the rider, sure it is?’

‘Yeah, and Robin’s the best.’ The girl warmed to a fellow enthusiast. ‘I’m Andy Bamford, by the way. You’re from Ireland, aren’t you? Is that where you rode?’

It’s as easy as that, Connolly thought. She was almost disappointed that it was not more of a challenge.

‘I’d worried I might have trouble getting people to talk,’ she told Slider when she got back, ‘but the trouble was getting them to stop.’

Frith himself, it turned out, was out all day, taking a horse that had a sprain to a specialist hydrotherapy facility; which was a blessing in a way because it left the field open for Andy Bamford to talk about him. The rapport with her was established so rapidly that she accepted the invitation from Connolly to go for a jar when her lunch break arrived shortly afterwards, leaving another groom – younger and rather miffed-looking – in charge. Following Andy’s battered, mud-and-rust streaked Fiesta, with tangled hemp halters and terminally sick plastic buckets rattling about in the back, Connolly drove to The Cock in Sarratt, and over toasted cheese sandwiches and a half of shandy, she got a full dose from Bamford of how wonderful Robin Frith really was.

‘She’s pure dotey on him, but I did get one thing out of all the drivel,’ Connolly said, ‘which was that he’s only been at Hillbrow since October ninety-eight, when he bought the place. It was a bit of a kip until then. The previous owners had let it run down, and he was the one that built it up to the piece o’ glory it is now. Before that he was working at another stables across the other side of Sarratt, place called Chipperfield—’

‘Which was where Amanda Sturgess said she and Rogers had their house,’ Slider remembered.

‘Is that so?’ said Connolly. ‘Well, that makes it interesting. Anyway, he’d been working at this stables, training horses, and competing himself, and then Hillbrow came on the market and he saw a chance to set up his own place and do it his own way. He’d his prize money saved, and he sold his house and used the money from that, but here’s the thing, guv – Andy says he also took on a partner, who put the rest of the cash up, but nobody knows who it is. He keeps it a secret, and it’s only his name on the headed paper, but Andy reckons it’s one of his sponsors who wants to keep his name out of the limelight.’

‘I thought the limelight was the whole point of sponsorship.’

Connolly shrugged. ‘She thinks it’s an eccentric millionaire, the looper! She didn’t like my suggestion at all, that it was a married woman he was having an affair with. Assured me her Robin wasn’t like that.’

‘You’re thinking it was Amanda put the money up,’ said Slider.

‘It crossed me mind. But there’s more. This one had to go back to work, but she’d said earlier that the Friths were an old Sarratt family. I said I’d settle the bill, and when she was gone I had a crack with the barman. I made out I was interested in local history and – well, long story short, he said I should have a word with this barmaid Maureen Hodges at The Boot, who knew everything about the place. So I went over there, got meself a jar, got into it with this Maureen, and struck gold.’

‘How did you open the subject?’

‘Oh, I didn’t need to. It turned out she had an Irish granny from Clare, and I let on my granddad was from the same place—’

‘That’s a coincidence.’

‘Well, he wasn’t. He was from Raheny, but what did she know? Anyway, after that she felt we were practically cousins, and it didn’t matter what I asked, she’d tell me, no charge. Janey, she was a babbling brook! But she knew all about the Friths and the Sturgesses.’

There’d been Friths in Sarratt since Moses was a lad, it turned out. The Sturgesses were comparative newcomers, arriving in the eighteenth century, but they were very well thought of. The Friths were farmers; the Sturgesses had private money, and as well as patronage had supplied two rectors over the period, and had built the village hall. The Knox bit had only recently arrived: Amanda’s mother had been a Knox and had wanted it tacked on, but local people sturdily rejected that piece of showmanship and refused to use more than Sturgess – which was perhaps why Amanda had reverted after the divorce.

Maureen had attended the local school with both Robin and Amanda, through infant and primary stages. After that she had gone to the local secondary, Amanda had gone private to St Mary’s girls’ school, and Robin had gone to Sarratt Grammar for Boys; but they’d still met up after school, at various local do’s and friends’ parties. As they grew older the social differences between them made themselves apparent: Robin’s family were well-to-do, Amanda’s a cut above that. Maureen’s father was only a shopkeeper, so she gradually drifted into her own set, and she left school at sixteen while the other two went on to the sixth form. But they all remained friendly, on village terms, and Maureen was witness to how things panned out.

‘She said it was always Robin and Amanda,’ Connolly told Slider, ‘from the nursery up. They did everything together. Everyone thought they would get married when they grew up. Well, these childhood romances don’t often work out, but the two of them just seemed to get closer. Then apparently when they were sixth form age, Robin threw a spanner in the works, saying he wanted to work with horses. Well, he’d always ridden – so had she – but to her it was just a hobby. She said he was an eejit – he’d never make any money at it, it was a waste of his brains. He said it was all he’d ever wanted. Eventually they had a big row about it. Maureen said Amanda gave out it was a menial job, working with animals, and he was better than that, and he took offence because his family were farmers and he thought she was looking down on them. So it was the big split, and she went off to university, while he went to do a horse management course at this posh residential place in Sussex.’

‘She said she went to Edinburgh to get as far away from her family as possible,’ Slider said. ‘But this story makes sense of that, too. And it would mean she was vulnerable to Rogers when she met him there.’

‘On the rebound?’ Connolly said. ‘Right. And him having the ambition to be a doctor – she’d have approved of that.’

‘What did Robin’s parents think about his career?’

‘They didn’t mind. There was another son, the older boy, to take over the farm, so Robin had to fare for himself somehow, and wanting to work with animals seemed normal to them. Maureen said she’d always though he’d become a vet, because he was so good with animals – could do anything with them, dogs never bit him and so on – but he just wanted to ride and train horses. Well, by the time Amanda came back from university, he’d got himself taken on at this stables in Chipperfield – which was quite a high-powered establishment from what Maureen said – and was competing and winning cups and all that carry-on, so he was happy enough. But your woman didn’t see it that way.’

‘I was under the impression that Amanda came back from Edinburgh already committed to Rogers,’ Slider said. ‘In love and wanting to marry, only the parents disapproved.’

‘Yes, sir, I read your notes. But Maureen tells a different story. She says Amanda came back with the doctor in tow all right, but she still wanted to take up with Robin again. Rogers was a fallback, just in case. She tried to get Robin to stop messing about with horses and better himself, but he wouldn’t. Maureen says he’s one of these quiet types that you think are a pushover but they’re stubborn as a donkey when they make their mind up. And in the end he wouldn’t do what she wanted, while the doctor did get on, so she married him instead.’

‘That sounds rather cold and calculating,’ Slider commented.

‘Well, sir, we’ve only Maureen’s word for it that it was that way, but the facts fit. And then she and Rogers buy a house in Chipperfield – that’s another one. And here’s the really interesting bit: she gets divorced, and no sooner does the Dirty Doctor move out, but your woman puts up the money for Robin to buy Hillbrow and get it in order.’

‘Ah, so she was the secret benefactor,’ Slider said. ‘You could have mentioned that when the subject first arose.’

‘And spoil the story?’ Connolly protested. ‘Isn’t it better this way? Anyway, the benefaction – is that the word? – is supposed to be secret, which is why she doesn’t appear on the website or the stationery. But of course Maureen knows the protagonists. In fact, given it’s a village, I should think everyone in Sarratt knows the secret. It’s probably only outsiders like the employees who’re kept in the dark.’

‘Does Maureen know Robin’s living with Amanda?’

‘No, sir. She said he sold his house to buy the stables and took a flat somewhere in Watford. And I asked her if she knew where Amanda lived and she said somewhere in London. She didn’t know more than that. She’d lost touch with her since the divorce and Amanda never came to Sarratt any more so she hadn’t seen her in years.’

‘So they managed to keep that part secret,’ Slider mused. ‘Though we still don’t know whether they are living together, or whether he’s just lodging with her for convenience’s sake.’

Connolly eyed him as if he were mad. ‘Sir, she wanted to marry Robin all along. No sooner does she finish with the doc than she funds his new business and he moves in with her. It looks black and white to me.’

‘It is very persuasive,’ Slider agreed. ‘But is there anything in this to suggest either of them would want Rogers dead? As far as I can see, he’s out of the picture. They’re divorced, and she could have married Robin ten times over if she wanted to. I can’t see any motive there.’

She looked disappointed. ‘Well, guv, now you mention it, neither can I. But that’s not to say there isn’t one. And she’s all we’ve got.’

‘So far,’ said Slider. He drummed his fingers on the desk, thinking. Amanda Sturgess had still seemed very bitter towards Rogers, even after all these years and having got, apparently, the man she wanted in the end. ‘Revenge?’ he said aloud. She had said there would be a woman at the bottom of it. Had she been being clever at their expense? It was a common failing in killers who had planned the killing – they longed to boast, particularly to the police. There was no fun in it if no one ever knew how clever they had been.

‘Or money,’ Connolly said, watching him hopefully like a bird eyeing a worm hole. ‘There’s got to be money in this somewhere.’

Slider shook his head. ‘Even if, long shot, Amanda was behind the murder, we don’t know that she’d get Frith to do it, rather than a professional. She might keep him entirely in the dark.’

‘But given everything he owes her . . .’

‘It still isn’t enough to ask someone to do murder for you.’

‘Unless he hates Rogers as well.’

‘Even so, if he’s as soft as you’ve been making out—’

‘Oh, I don’t think he can be soft,’ Connolly said. ‘Maybe a pushover in the love stakes, but he’s won Badminton twice, and you don’t get to do that being a softie. And when Maureen was talking about how good he is with animals, she told how once they were walking home from school, the three of them, and a car going past them hit a pheasant. The poor beast was flapping around, and Robin – they were all about ten at the time – picked it up and broke its neck, just like that.’

‘Anyone would do the same,’ said Slider, who was a country boy himself.

‘I’m from Dublin,’ said Connolly. ‘I’d have taken it to the vet.’