Dear Departed (15 page)

‘I don’t know. I was past in a flash, I only got an impression. Just two joggers stopped for a chat, I suppose.’

‘Why did you think they were joggers?’

He screwed up his face in effort, but said, ‘I really don’t know. It was just a flash as I went past. I think one of them had one of those hooded tops that joggers wear.’

‘Colour?’

‘I really don’t know.’

‘Was it red?’

‘I don’t think so. A neutral colour or a dark colour perhaps. I don’t think it was anything obvious like red.’

‘Hood up or down?’

‘Well, up,’ he said after a fractional pause, ‘otherwise I wouldn’t have known it was hooded, would I?’

‘Were they male or female?’

‘I think the one facing my way was a woman. Maybe with fair hair? The one with the hood was taller, so I suppose it was a man. But I can’t say anything for sure. It’s just an impression. I was going too fast, and thinking about other things.’

‘And whereabouts were they standing?’

‘On the path by the shrubbery, the path that goes down to the station and King Street.’

‘So you came in at the Paddenswick Gate, turned left at the junction of the path, and
then
you saw them?’

‘That’s right.’

That was on the side of the shrubbery where the SOCOs had gone in, not on the side where Mr Chapman’s dog had disappeared. If the people Yerbury had seen were Chattie and
the killer, it was more suggestion that the grooves in the bark were faked.

‘All right,’ Slider said. ‘Thank you. You’ve been most cooperative. And if anything else occurs to you that might help us, or you find you can remember more about the people you saw, you will contact me at once?’

‘Well, yes,’ he said, rising and exuding relief along with the sweat, ‘but really, I don’t think there’s anything more I can tell you. I just happened to be there at the time. I didn’t even know the woman.’

Slider saw him out, and went back to his room, pondering. Yerbury’s story held together, and Slider did not feel he was their man. A policeman has to go on instinct a lot of the time, or the work would never get done. On the other hand, it was looking better for McLaren’s copycat-killer theory. Running Man had been wearing a hooded sweat top – a hoodie, the young people called it. And if Yerbury had seen two people talking on the path by the shrubbery, someone else would have, too. At that time of day, with so many people around, someone would have.

A sunny afternoon was shaping up after the morning’s rain. The air seemed washed, the trees moved about as if refreshed, and happy, trotting dogs had a whole lot of new scent-marking to do. The Anchor had its door set open, and a pleasant murmur of voices drifted out. Atherton went in and waited a moment for his eyes to adjust from the brightness outside. It was a nice, ordinary, old-fashioned pub, with no music, no games machines, no décor, and a fireplace in the corner that bore all the marks of having a real fire in the winter. People were sitting around tables eating, drinking and conversing – a nice mix of ages, but all responsible adults. The sight of decent English people not bothering each other was a lovely thing, he thought – a sort of poetry.

He went up to the bar, and the barman approached him with an expectant face, polishing a glass without looking. ‘Help you, sir?’

‘I’m looking for a Mr Fosdyke,’ Atherton said.

‘That’s me. Reggie Fosdyke. I’m the landlord.’ He was a round man with a round, red face. He was bald over the top of his
head, and had a close-clipped white beard – got his head on upside-down, Atherton thought automatically. He was smiling genially but he had the cold and noticing eyes of a London licensee and they went over Atherton like a scanner. ‘From the police?’
he concluded.

‘You rang saying you had information for us,’ Atherton said.

‘Right it is. Come up the end of the bar, bit of privacy,’ said Fosdyke. ‘Drink?’

‘Not for me, thanks. I’m on duty.’

‘Oh, come on! I know coppers. Anyway, it looks bad you sitting there without a drink. I’d as soon the rest of the bar didn’t know you were the Bill. Nosy bastards, some of them – especially that lot up the end. What do you drink? Gin and tonic, is it?’

Atherton assumed this was a calculation rather than a wild guess. The man was good. ‘Thanks.’

‘On the house,’ Fosdyke said. ‘If anyone asks, you’re my new accountant.’

He mixed the drink, excused himself to refill someone’s pint, and came back to Atherton. ‘Sorry about that. The girl’s on her lunch.’ At that moment a young woman came in from the back, wiping her lips, and he said to her sharply, ‘Finished? About time. Look after the bar, will you? I’m having ten minutes talking business here. Right, then.’ He settled himself, elbows on the bar, arms folded, head approached confidentially towards Atherton’s. ‘You wanted to know about Tuesday night?’

‘Yes. I had a message that you had seen Miss Cornfeld in here.’

‘Is that her name? Chattie, she was called, that’s all I know. Nickname or something. She lives in this road. I dunno the number. But,’ he caught himself up with a short laugh, ‘you know that. Why am I telling you? You got the house sealed off and about a million coppers in and out. Searching it, are you? What you looking for?’

‘You saw Chattie in here on Tuesday,’ Atherton prompted evenly.

Fosdyke tapped the side of his nose and winked. ‘Right. Fair enough. Well, she comes in a lot, does our Chattie. What a nice girl, eh? Always full of it, having a laugh – and jokes? She knew
a million of ’em. Said it was hanging about with musicians – they’re always telling jokes. Mind you,’ he said sternly, as if Atherton had made an adverse suggestion, ‘she was a nice girl. A real lady, if you know what I mean. She could tell a joke, right, that was, well, a bit blue – funny as hell – and it’d be just on the line, but she’d never cross it. She knew exactly how far to go, know what I mean?’

‘Tuesday night?’ Atherton suggested.

Fosdyke was offended. ‘I’m just filling in the background for you. You in a hurry?’

‘Not at all,’ Atherton said soothingly. ‘I’m enjoying my drink. Please go on.’

‘Well, Tuesday night,’ Fosdyke resumed, with a little huffiness, ‘she came in about five past seven. The bloke was waiting for her. He came in about five to, so I reckon they’d arranged to meet at seven.’

But the diary entry was ‘JS 8pm’, Atherton thought.

‘Can you describe the man?’

‘Yeah. He was, what, about twenty-five or so – looked younger than her. Kind of roundish, babyish face. About medium height, had very dark hair, straight, kind of flopped in his eyes – kept pushing it back, you know?’ He made a graphic gesture of swiping his forehead clear. ‘I don’t know how he could stand it. It’d drive me barmy, having hair in me eyes all the time.’

Atherton resisted the urge to glance at his bald top. ‘You didn’t catch a name, I suppose?’

‘Well, I think it was Toby,’ Fosdyke said. ‘Only when she came in, she said, “Hello, Tobes.” Or I think that was what she said.’

Toby, Atherton thought. One of the musicians in the band, the oboist, was called Toby Harkness; and from what he remembered from the photographs on the website, he had a young face and dark hair. It was not in the diary, so it was a casual meeting. He must have called her up – on the missing mobile, perhaps – and said meet me in the Anchor. Why hadn’t he gone to the house, though? Maybe he’d rung from the pub – come on down for a drink.

‘Did they seem on friendly terms?’

‘Oh, yes. She got up on the stool next to him and kissed him hello.’

‘On the cheek or the mouth?’

‘On the cheek. And then she sort of ruffled his hair – a bit mumsy, like. As if he was her kid brother. He didn’t like that – sort of jerked his head away. But they were friends all right. Known each other for ages, I’d’ve said.’

‘How long did they stay?’

‘Not long. Had a drink, then she up and leaves, about a quart’ to eight, give or take.’

‘He didn’t leave with her?’

‘No, he sits there looking a bit glum, and I goes up and asks him if he wants another, and he sort of shakes himself and says, no, he’s off. And he gets up and goes.’

‘Did they quarrel?’

‘Well, I wasn’t hanging over ’em listening. I was serving, and it was a busy time – lot of office workers call in on their way home. Seven to eight’s a busy time. But I don’t think they quarrelled. I never saw anything of that. And when she goes, she seems friendly towards him, and, like, kisses him again. No, I wouldn’t say they quarrelled. But,’ he added, with the air of having saved this until last, ‘they were talking seriously. You didn’t often see Chattie without she was laughing, and I didn’t see her laugh with this Toby bloke.’

‘Had you seen her with him before?’

‘Yeah, I reckon I had, once or twice, but not recently. Mind you, she often came in with a man and it wasn’t often the same one twice.’ He dropped a ghastly wink. ‘Well, why not?’ he asked broadly. ‘Nice, pretty girl like that, full of beans, why shouldn’t she play the field? I know I would, if I had her opportunities.’ A thought seemed to strike him. He looked almost bewildered. ‘Doesn’t seem possible she’s gone. What sort of a bastard would do that to a pretty girl? I know what I’d do to him if I caught him.’

‘So Chattie left at about a quarter to eight? And you didn’t see her again?’

‘No,’ he said, with a sentimental sigh. ‘I never laid eyes on her again. If I’d known then what I know now …’

He left it hanging, and Atherton couldn’t imagine how the sentence could be ended. More interesting was this serious talk with Toby, probably Toby Harkness, which she left for the date with JS. Had she told Toby whom she was going to meet? Had
she told him what was on her mind? The cleaner had said she was thoughtful the last few days, now Fosdyke said she had a serious conversation for once in her life. If she’d had some business with JS that went wrong, was it possible that he had killed her the next day? He felt there was some investigating to be done around Baroque Solid’s members, which was a happy thought for him.

It was lucky for credibility that the call came in to someone other than McLaren. Witnesses were suggestible at the best of times, and his keenness had led him astray on previous occasions. But it was Hollis who came to Slider to say, ‘We’ve had another witness, guv, who saw the victim talking to someone in a hoodie on that bit of path.’

‘Let’s be accurate. We don’t know that it was the victim,’ Slider said.

Hollis smirked under his appalling moustache. ‘We do now. This bloke was walking past and saw her. He recognised her from the photo on the news.’

‘How sure is he?’

‘He sounds okay,’ Hollis answered the question behind the question. ‘Sensible enough. And he described her hair and clothes and general height and build, which I don’t think he could have got from the telly.’

‘Did he see the face of the man?’

‘No, guv,’ Hollis said regretfully. ‘Bloke had his back to him. He says he had his hands in his pockets and the hood up and was sort of hunched. Looked furtive, witness says, made sure to keep his face hidden as he went past. But he says he was slim and a bit taller than the victim.’

‘Wearing?’

‘Well, the hoodie, like he said – grey, he thought. But he wasn’t sure what else he was wearing. Thought it might be a tracksuit bottom and trainers.’

‘Running Man was wearing chinos,’ Slider reminded him. Hollis shrugged. ‘Get him in and get a full statement from him. Try and test his memory about the victim, see if he remembers
the CD Walkman or the water-bottle. Was she holding anything? Did he see her expression? Was she talking or listening? Anything to substantiate his identification of her.’

‘Right you are,’ said Hollis. ‘He’s on his way now. Pity he didn’t see the man’s face, but at least it fits with what Yerbury said. It was the same part of the path. So it looks as if we can chuck the random killing idea. I can’t see a savvy bird like her going into the shrubbery with a stranger if she wasn’t forced.’

‘If
the person she was talking to was the killer,’ Slider said. ‘He might just have been someone asking for a light.’

‘No, guv,’ Hollis said, ‘there was more to it than that. This witness saw them standing together for more than a minute before he passed them. He was coming from the station end and he saw them when he came round the bend of the path. And when he turned right to go out the Paddenswick gate, he thinks they’d gone.’

‘Both of them?’

Hollis’s large, gooseberry eyes widened as he nodded to the implication. ‘Both of them. So where could they have gone except into the shrubbery?’

On leaving the pub, Atherton decided to pop in at the house to see what was going on. It was only sense, as he was right there on the spot; nothing to do with the fact that Hart was among the searchers. PC Renker was on the door, and nodded to him as he trod up the steps.

‘Sounds as though there’s a bit of excitement down there, sir,’ he said, gesturing with his head over his shoulder. ‘I wouldn’t be surprised if they hadn’t found something.’

The raised voices were coming from the basement. Atherton went down the stairs and Hart turned as he entered, and said, ‘Wotcha, Jim. Is that good timing or what?’

‘Judging by your enormous grin, you’ve found something,’ Atherton said. There were two other people there, a woman called Viv Preston, borrowed from the SOC team, and WPC Coffey, who was blonde, hard as an acid drop, and had had a sense-of-humour bypass when she joined the Job.

‘First time I come down here,‘ said Hart, ‘I said to myself, “Blimey! Top kitchen! I bet this cost a bob or two.” And now I think I know where the bobs came from.’

She gestured to Coffey’s position by the furthest cabinet. The door of the wall-mounted cupboard was open, and on the worktop below were some tins of tomatoes and soup evidently removed from it.

‘Go on, ’ave a look,’ Hart invited.

Atherton went across. Inside the cupboard a few tins still remained, and tucked behind them, peeking out coyly, was a ziplock plastic bag containing a white powder.

‘Cocaine?’ he said. It was the sort of thing to thrill a sad copper’s heart. Everything suddenly became much more explicable when drugs entered the equation.