Game Over

Six

Voi Che Sapete

In the morning, Atherton got up quietly while Emily was still asleep, showered and dressed and went downstairs to feed the cats and let them out, and make coffee. He had no idea how she was going to feel, when she woke, about the events of the night. Would she regret them, blame him for ‘taking advantage of her’? At best there might be embarrassment, at worst blazing resentment. For himself, he wanted only to be with her all the time, a sensation he had not previously known. Even with Sue, to whom he had once proposed marriage, he had not envisaged spending every moment of the rest of his life in her company. The very idea would have made him nuts. Now, though he knew she must be exhausted, he longed for her to wake up so he could talk to her again.

Fortunately, or unfortunately depending on how you looked at it, the kits, not being used to having visitors in the house, thundered upstairs in their usual manner. As soon as he came downstairs in the morning they liked to race to the top full speed and fling themselves from the bedroom door on to the bed in one splendid Baryshnikov leap. They were gone before he could stop them and he distinctly heard Vash say ‘Wah!’ in astonishment, before the pair of them thundered back down with their tails in bloom and disappeared into the garden and under the ceanothus.

Atherton hastened upstairs. Emily was sitting up in bed, clutching the duvet to her chest, looking bleary. ‘What the hell was that?’ she asked thickly.

‘The cats. I’m sorry, they dashed off before I could stop them. I’ll keep them shut in downstairs now and you can go back to sleep.’

She rubbed her eyes. ‘You’re dressed,’ she said.

‘I have to go to work. But you can go back to sleep. You must need it.’

‘No, no,’ she said, beginning to wriggle to the edge of the bed. ‘I want to come in with you. I want to know what’s happening. When do you have to leave?’

‘About fifteen minutes. I was just making some coffee.’

‘Me for that,’ she said. ‘I’m a really quick dresser. I’ll be downstairs in five minutes. Don’t go without me.’

Well, at least she didn’t seem either embarrassed or angry, he thought, going downstairs again. It seemed like an excellent start – unless she’d completely forgotten the events of the night before? Oh, there was a depressing thought!

But when she appeared, really only five minutes later, she gave him a shy look as she took the mug of coffee from him and said, ‘About last night – I want you to know it wasn’t just, you know, Dad and everything. I hope you didn’t feel, well, forced into it.’

‘God, no!’ he said fervently, handing her a mug of coffee. ‘I was just hoping you didn’t feel I’d taken advantage of you.’

‘If I remember rightly, I was the one who made the advances. And it would have been hard for you to push me away, in the circumstances.’

‘Pushing you away was the last thing I wanted.’

‘I’m glad about that,’ she said. ‘Can we . . .? I don’t know how to put this . . .’

‘Carry on where we left off?’ he suggested.

‘Something like that.’ There was colour in her cheeks and she was looking down into the mug as if the coffee was a crystal ball.

‘I said you could stay here as long as you liked, and that still goes. Even more so.’

‘Thanks,’ she said. At that moment, fortunately, the kits came back, tiptoeing to the back door, boggling at her, and she put her mug down and hunkered, holding out her fingers to them. ‘Come on, you two, I’m not a monster. Isn’t it amazing how something as dainty as a cat can make so much noise? They sounded like a cattle stampede coming upstairs.’

So it seemed that everything was all right.

Slider woke feeling unrested, and guessed from the heaviness of Joanna’s movements that she felt the same. When she came back from the bathroom she put her arms round him and said, ‘I half wish I didn’t have these dates. I don’t want to be away from you. I hate that man.’

‘I feel the same way.’

He cooked breakfast while she packed an overnight bag, which he took out to the car, looking carefully in all directions before each movement. But all seemed quiet and he did not feel the sensation of being watched. He supposed even crazed psychopaths had to sleep, and they were deliberately starting off early, before anything that would be normal time for either of them. Even so he watched the rear view all the time, and scrutinised every car that came in sight for unusual behaviour. In the station yard he transferred her things to her own car.

‘Be careful,’ he said, hugging her. ‘Change speeds and lanes every now and then and watch for anyone following you. I don’t think anyone will, but it’s best to keep an eye out. If you’re worried about anything, phone me.’

She held him close for a moment, and he felt the baby kick him through both their sets of clothes. Then she pulled away, releasing him to the work he had to do. ‘Be brilliant, Inspector.’

‘I will. Be talented, beautiful and desirable.’

‘How can I help it?’

There were two telephone messages for him on his desk and he sat down and returned the calls while it was quiet. The first was from Freddie Cameron.

‘No surprises, old bean,’ he said. ‘Death was caused by the blow to the head. Would have been virtually instantaneous. We’re talking about something rounded, possibly padded, very heavy, and wielded with great force. Cease looking for frail women, old-age pensioners or children.’

‘Isn’t it always the last person you suspect?’

‘Not in this life. One other thing – there were traces of oil on the pockets, where chummy went through them, and a large mark on the sleeve of the jacket, where I suppose it was pulled back to expose the watch. From first tests it looks like motor oil of some kind. Do you want it tested further?’

‘Might as well. I don’t think there’ll be any budgetary restraints on this one. Send off the best sample to Les Patterson, will you?’

‘Ah, the alien-substances chappie. Will do. Anything else?’

‘I don’t think so, at the moment, thanks, Freddie.’

The second message was from Bob Bailey. Slider tried his office, and was told he was at the site already, and rang him there on his mobile.

‘I thought you’d like to know that we came up with more oil traces,’ Bailey said. ‘On the files in that filing cabinet and on the front door. I think we can get a good enough sample to analyse, possibly get a match when you get a suspect. D’you want to go ahead?’

‘Yes, please. Bung it off to Les Patterson, will you? Freddie Cameron says he’s found oil on the clothes, too.’

‘Careless buggers, criminals,’ said Bailey.

‘Anything else?’

‘Footprints by the filing cabinet. Two, where he stood still, probably while he was looking through the drawer. They’re really only impressions in the pile of the carpet, so I can’t get much for you – no nice whorls and lugs – but it looks to be some kind of heavy boot, not the leather-soled city shoes the victim was wearing. And smaller. Victim wore a size eleven, and these are a nine at the most – I’d say possibly even an eight, given that with a boot the outside profile tends to be bigger than with a shoe. Any good?’

‘I don’t know yet. Were the boot marks oily too?’

‘No, we didn’t find any particular traces connected with them. I suppose he will have walked off anything coming up the stairs and along the corridor. Do you want me to try and trace them back? The carpet outside the flat doesn’t have much pile on it,’ he said doubtfully.

‘Well, you can have a look, but don’t knock yourself out. There’ve been too many people in and out.’

‘OK. Well, good luck. There’s a stack of press people here already. I got in early to avoid them but there’s a lot of media interest in this one.’

‘Don’t I know it,’ said Slider.

In the car on the way to the station, Atherton asked, ‘Why did your father leave the BBC? It seemed such an odd thing to do. I would have thought he was at the top of the tree there.’

‘It seemed odd to me, too,’ she said. ‘Until I took into account the change in the BBC culture. Dad had been there for ever, and he couldn’t stand the new regime. He felt – we both feel – that the news ought to be taken seriously. The Beeb kept dumbing it down until the Six was little more than a magazine programme and the Ten not much better. And he didn’t like the editorial control. He felt a journalist ought to be allowed to tell it the way it seemed to him. Well, of course, being Dad he didn’t keep his feelings to himself. He spoke out a little too frankly for the bosses, made himself unpopular, and was invited to leave.’

‘Sacked?’ Atherton asked.

She made a comical face. ‘Nobody’s sacked from the BBC. But they have ways of punishing you if you don’t go when you’re invited. He was ready to go, anyway. He was fed up with it, and wanted a change. He was at the top of his game and he didn’t think he’d have any difficulty in getting another job. And he didn’t. He started with the DTI the moment his notice at the Beeb ended.’

‘But why there?’

‘Oh, it was one of the government’s periodical recruitment drives of outsiders. Every now and then they have a spasm of thinking they need media savvy types with outside experience. And of course everyone had heard of Dad. The news that he and the Beeb weren’t on speaking terms any more filtered through and they were thrilled with the idea of having someone who knew the organisation from the inside but didn’t like it.’ She gave him a frank look. ‘They’re pretty paranoid about Auntie, you know.’

‘And did he like it there?’

‘He did at first. He said it was interesting seeing government from the inside, and quite exciting to be close to the seat of power. But he never thought much of Sid Andrew, and he got frustrated at the way things were done.’

‘Specifically?’

‘Oh, I don’t know really. He didn’t go into detail with me. I think he just felt too many things were happening behind closed doors. He was never a great one for conspiracy,’ she said with a wry smile.

‘Why did he choose the DTI?’

‘He didn’t – they chose him. He’d had a lot of experience covering industrial relations and disputes before he became a foreign correspondent, so I suppose they thought he’d speak their language. But mostly I think they just wanted to have the kudos of getting Ed Stonax of the BBC on to their books. I think he felt he was pretty under-used.’

She lapsed into silence and as he had to concentrate just then on the traffic there was a silence between them. When he could look again, he saw her staring at her hands, her head bowed. It was not a happy posture.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘do you mind talking about him?’

She roused herself from her reverie. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Talking about him helps me stop thinking about what’s happened. I can’t take it in, except in tiny flashes, and then it hurts too much. I just want to see him and talk to him about it, because he always had the best ideas about everything. Is that stupid? To want to talk to someone about who murdered them?’

‘Who would know better?’ said Atherton.

She screwed up her eyes in pain. ‘I hate that word. Murdered. I can’t take it. Not Dad! Not him!’

He reached across and touched her hand and hers folded quickly round his and hung on, as though for salvation. ‘We’ll be there soon. It’s the next turning. Do you want to go off and do other things? You’ve got a key for the house so you can come and go as you like.’

She squeezed his hand and then drew hers back. ‘I haven’t got anything else to do,’ she said. ‘And I want to help. I want to come in with you.’

‘All right, then,’ Atherton said, turning into Stanlake Road.

Slider looked surprised. ‘What’s come over you?’

‘I think you ought to know the answer to that, seeing you started with Joanna when she was a witness in the Austin case.’

‘And as I remember you thoroughly disapproved.’

‘And you said she wasn’t a material witness, which she wasn’t, only happened to know the deceased. Emily wasn’t even in the country. She’s just the victim’s daughter.’

‘All the same, at a moment when she’s in emotional turmoil—’

‘This is a moral objection, then, not a police procedural one?’ Atherton asked with his head up.

‘It’s not like you,’ Slider said.

‘No, it isn’t. And for the record, she came on to me. And I’ve no intention of letting her down. I’m extremely serious about her.’

Slider surveyed his friend’s face and was baffled. Atherton was a serial womaniser and he was so attractive to the opposite sex he had to fight them off with a plank. But to be bedding a woman when she’d only found out that day that her father had been murdered . . . When Emily Stonax was back in her right mind, she might well bring a complaint, and though Atherton hadn’t broken any specific rule it could be viewed as misconduct. As to including her in the investigation – would it make her more or less likely to want to sue if she saw the way the department operated? On the other hand, she might have useful insights to share. Joanna had been extremely helpful during the Austin case.

‘She can’t sit in on our meetings,’ he said at last. ‘But you can pass things on to her unless I specifically say you can’t. You’ll have to use your judgement about how much you want to tell her.’

‘She wants to help. She wants to be useful.’

‘Well, I expect she will be,’ Slider said.

‘Can’t we give her something to do? She says she’s very good at research. She must be, given her job.’ Slider began shaking his head halfway through this, and Atherton added, ‘I brought in my own laptop, so she wouldn’t have to use one of ours.’

‘If anything comes up that’s suitable, we’ll talk about it then,’ Slider said, standing up. ‘For now, I have a meeting to conduct.’

When everyone was assembled and more or less quiet, Slider began with the summary.

‘In the case of Edward Philip Stonax, BSc, PhD, DBA—’

McLaren looked up from his fried egg sandwich. ‘It’s not spelt like it sounds, then?’

Slider continued, but louder. ‘Ed Stonax was killed yesterday morning by a single blow to the head with something like a cosh. His pockets were emptied and his watch was removed – an expensive Rolex. We believe his wallet, credit cards and mobile phone were also taken.’

‘I’ve asked Mick Hutton to put a trace on the mobile,’ Swilley said.

‘Thanks. OK, so far it looks like simple robbery from the person. However, Bob Bailey found oily fingermarks – gloved – on a filing cabinet in Stonax’s office in the flat, and a file seems to have been removed from it – at least, there’s an empty hanging folder. So there may be another motive. One of the neighbours, Mrs Koontz, saw a motorbike courier leaving the flats at half past seven when she was walking her dog.’

‘Guv,’ said Hart, ‘how did she know he was a courier and not just any old bloke in leathers?’

‘Good question. Mackay?’

Mackay looked at his notes of the interview with Mrs Koontz. ‘She didn’t say he was, she just said he was a man in leathers and a dark helmet. He was carrying a large envelope, and he got on to a motorbike which had a white box on the back, and put the envelope in it. The box had a logo on it. So I assumed from that he was a courier of some sort.’

‘Fair enough. Now, Freddie Cameron says there were traces of oil on the victim’s pockets and sleeve, and the security door to the building wasn’t working, so anyone could have come in off the street. Conclusions?’

‘It looks,’ said Hollis, ‘as though either someone posed as a courier to rob Stonax—’

‘Or someone wants to make us think that’s what happened,’ said Atherton.

‘The courier might have been legitimate. Did anyone in the building receive a visit from a courier that morning?’ Slider asked.

‘No-one said they did,’ Hart reported.

‘Better check that point.’

‘Guv, there was that biro found underneath the body,’ she went on. ‘Say the murderer was pretending to be a courier, he could’ve asked Stonax to sign something and given him the biro. That could’ve been where it came from.’

‘Good point. Now, further to this courier theory, as far as it is one, the caretaker, Dave Borthwick, has a bike in his basement, a Triumph. However the bike does not have a box on the back. Hollis, have you looked into Borthwick yet?’

‘Yes, guv, and he’s got some previous. No burglary or robbery, but he’s done some thieving. Started with nicking cars for joyriding when he was fourteen. Nicking hubcaps and wire wheels to order when he was fifteen. Then as an adult, got done for stealing tools from B and Q – cautioned. Stealing a motorbike – got community service for that. Couple of drunk and disorderlies. And he was involved in that car-ringing gang four years ago, but there wasn’t enough evidence against him and there were no charges brought. Nothing against him since then, and he got the caretaker’s job at Valancy House just over two years ago.’

‘How come they took him on with a record like that?’ Fathom asked.

‘I don’t suppose anyone asked,’ Hollis said. ‘The landlord’s a property company, JK Holdings, owns all three of those identical blocks in Riverene Road. Previous caretaker left suddenly, and they’d be in a hurry to get someone in, not wanting to leave the place empty. Caretaker gets the flat plus a small salary to do general maintenance and a bit of light cleaning of the public areas – hall and stairs. I gave ’em a ring and they said there’d been no complaints against him, so we have to reckon he was discharging his duties all right.’

‘Yeah,’ said Hart. ‘The average age in that building must be about ninety-five, and them old trouts really love complaining.’

‘But if it was Borthwick who did it,’ Fathom said, ‘why would he dress himself up as a courier to do the robbery? I mean, he must have had plenty of opportunities to do the place over while people were out.’

‘Yeah, that would look good, him being the caretaker!’ Hart said derisively. ‘Of course he had to cover himself up, because any of the old biddies would’ve recognised him. And he had to make it look like an outsider, didn’t he, to take the heat off himself? That’s why he broke the security door.’

‘Hmm,’ said Slider. ‘But he’d not done anything like that before. Why Stonax, why robbery from the person, and why now?’

‘Maybe he’d seen the F283,’ Hart said. ‘People’d kill for that Cyber-box. He wouldn’t have any trouble shifting it afterwards. Say he’d seen Stonax come in using it? He might not’ve meant to kill him – just hit him a bit too hard.’

‘But what about the oil smears on the filing cabinet?’ Slider said. ‘If the Cyber-box was his object, what was he doing in the office?’

Hart shrugged. ‘Maybe once he’d slugged Stonax he reckoned he might as well look round. Hoping to find some cash or something portable.’

‘He didn’t take anything,’ Atherton said.

‘Maybe he was disturbed,’ Mackay said. ‘Thought he heard something. If it wasn’t his usual style, he would have been well nervous.’

‘All right,’ said Slider, ‘we’d better turn him over. Bring him in for questioning, and search his flat while he’s here. Get some samples of oil from various parts of the motorbike and send them off to Les Patterson. If we can get a match on that we’ll know something, at least. What else?’

Swilley spoke up. ‘Boss, there’s something about Candida Scott-Chatton that doesn’t make sense.’

‘Her name for a start,’ McLaren muttered.

‘She seemed as if she was hiding something. And she didn’t seem upset enough. Then, Stonax’s daughter says she stuck by her father after his bit of trouble last year, but Candida’s secretary says she dropped him like a hot potato and started to go out with Freddie Bell.’

Slider frowned. ‘But the daughter says she gave Stonax an expensive watch for Christmas.’

‘A really expensive watch,’ Atherton said. ‘Depending on the model, a Rolex Oyster Perpetual knocks out at five thousand upwards. Not the sort of thing you give to someone you aren’t seeing any more.’

‘Maybe it was Freddie Bell give it her,’ Hart said. ‘He blows his nose on fifty-pound notes.’

‘Worth another go,’ Slider nodded to Swilley. ‘Especially with the Freddie Bell connection. I can’t see the head of the Countryside Protection Trust lamming Stonax on the head, but Freddie Bell’s a different matter.’

‘He’s got no form, guv,’ Hollis reminded him. ‘Clean as a whistle.’

‘A whistle might be shiny on the outside, but on the inside it’s full of germs and old spit. Have another word with Scott-Chatton, Norma, and see where it leads. And Hollis, see if there’s anything unofficial against Bell. I’ve got an idea in the back of my head there was some sort of story about him a while back.’

‘So you don’t think it was robbery from the person, then?’ Fathom said.

‘I’m not at the stage of thinking anything yet,’ Slider said, his old formula. ‘I’m just looking for anomalies and asking questions. Mackay, go back to Mrs Koontz and find out more about this courier she saw. What kind and size of envelope? What did the logo look like? Where did he go? McLaren, did anyone in the building have a courier call that morning. Everyone else, start going through the papers. Questions?’ No-one spoke. He looked at Hart. ‘Regarding Bates’s house being watched?’

She started blankly, then jerked. ‘Oh! Yeah – I forgot for a minute. Phil Warzynski says the house was sealed off when the forensic mob had done their number. They keep a man on all the time, who keeps a note of who goes in and out.’

‘So there have been people going in and out?’ Slider asked.

‘Various SO people, but they all have to have proper ID. And everything they take out is logged. Phil says they took out a load of electronics gear a couple of weeks ago, but it was all signed for.’

‘So he couldn’t be living there,’ Mackay said.

‘But he must have a place to hang out,’ Hart went on, ‘and if he was following you, guv, it must be fairly local.’

‘We need to look into his local contacts,’ Slider said. ‘Anyone he might bunk up with, any other properties he’s got an interest in.’

‘And what about his sidekicks?’ Atherton said. ‘His driver, Thomas Mark, and that bodyguard of his, what was his name? Norman something?’

‘Norman Grant. But he’s still inside,’ Slider said. ‘He was nicked for carrying a firearm at the same time that we took his boss. But there was that butler-type he employed – what was his name?’

‘Archie Gordon,’ Hollis supplied. ‘He and Mark disappeared when Bates was taken, and we don’t know where they are. They might be helping him.’

Atherton looked significantly at Slider. ‘It seems we could do with someone to do some research, but who have we got to spare?’

‘Oh, all right,’ Slider said. ‘Give her the biographical bits of the file and the names, and see what she can come up with.’

‘Her who?’ Hart demanded.

Atherton wasn’t going to answer so Slider did. ‘Emily Stonax. She wants to help, and she needs something to do to keep her mind off things.’

‘Makes sense,’ Norma said. ‘We’re not officially on Bates, and she’s not officially here.’