Dear Departed (6 page)

‘I love music,’ he answered her belatedly. ‘But I’m afraid that’s not why I’m here.’

‘Oh dear, I hope we’re not in trouble,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name.’

‘Atherton. Detective Sergeant Atherton, Shepherd’s Bush.’ And then, to his own surprise, he added, ‘Jim,’ and held out his hand.

She took it. Hers was warm and dry and strong. A hand of ability. He wondered if she was a violinist. ‘I’m Marion,’ she said. ‘Marion Davies.’

It was an oddly old-fashioned name, Marion. He wondered if she had older parents. But its plainness appealed to him. It suddenly seemed the essence of femininity.

‘I play second fiddle,’ she went on.

The words ‘second fiddle’ immediately brought Sue to his mind; one of those instant and uncontrollable associations. She lurked in his mind all the time anyway, though he kept his mental eyes firmly turned away from her.

‘You haven’t got a mark,’ he said to Marion Davies, looking at her neck.

From the background of his thoughts of Sue, he had spoken too intimately. She blushed, and her skin was so delicate and clear he could actually see the blood racing up the corpuscles like BMW drivers up the M1. ‘I’ve been lucky. But I’ve always used a pad,’ she said.

He pulled himself together, and said, ‘The reason I’m here is that we have come by one of your demo discs in unusual circumstances, and I wondered if you could give me an idea of who was likely to have had one.’ He handed over the disc in its bag, and she took it, looking a little bewildered.

‘Unusual circumstances?’ she said. And then, ‘I can’t think how you got hold of this. We haven’t sent them out yet. I mean,
this isn’t even a finished disc. We’re going back to the studio on Friday to do the mixing.’

‘I was hoping that was the case,’ Atherton said. ‘So how many other copies like this were there and who had them?’

‘Well, it was just us in the band. Eight of us. Though I don’t know if they made any for the studio people. It’s a small independent studio in Goldhawk Mews,’ she added, looking up at him.

‘Yes, I know.’ They must have longed to call themselves Goldhawk Studios, but as that name was already taken, they had gone with Mews Studios, which was a bit like chewing rubber.

‘There’s Mike, Mike Ardeel. He owns the studio. And there’s Tony and Phil, the sound engineers.’

‘And that’s all? No-one else you can think of who might have had one.’

‘No,’ she said; and then, ‘Oh, of course Chattie had one.’

‘Chattie?’

‘It’s short for Charlotte.’ She smiled. ‘How cool is that? I love it! Chattie Cornfeld. She’s our PR person, and – well, she does all sorts of things for us.’

‘Can you describe her to me?’

‘She’s not in trouble, is she?’ Marion asked, looking concerned, but only as worried as a speeding fine, perhaps, or a parking ticket. Atherton didn’t speak, only gave her a stolid silence into which to insert her answer. ‘Well,’ said Marion, ‘she’s about my height, short blonde hair – very pretty.’ She looked at him enquiringly, to see if that was enough.

‘Does she wear a gold medallion round her neck?’

Now, belatedly, real worry entered. ‘Yes, it’s a St Anthony medal. She got it in Tuscany last year. She loves it. Why? What’s happened?’ She looked down at the disc in its transparent evidence bag. ‘Why have you got it all wrapped up like this?’

Atherton said, ‘I’m going to ask you to look at a picture and tell me if you think it’s her.’

She could tell from the kindly way he said it. ‘Oh, my God, what’s happened? She’s been hurt.’

Atherton said nothing, only offered her the mugshot. She looked at it for a moment, and then nodded. He saw her throat move as she tried to swallow. ‘She’s dead, isn’t she?’ she managed to say.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Atherton. He was having to restrain himself from clasping her to the manly booz. She might have some irritating verbal habits, but she was as cute as all-get-out.

‘What happened? Was it an accident?’

‘No,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry. It wasn’t an accident.’

Her eyes widened. ‘You don’t mean – she was
murdered?’

‘Yes, I’m afraid so.’

She had paled, and her lips moved soundlessly a few times before she was able to say, ‘But who did it? Who would do such a thing?’

‘I’m afraid from early appearances it seems to have been a random killing.’

‘Oh, my God,’ she said again. She swayed a little, and Atherton put out a hand to catch her elbow, and used it to guide her to a seat. ‘When?’ she asked.

‘Early this morning. She was attacked while she was out jogging.’

‘Oh, my God,’ she said again. ‘I can’t believe it. Not Chattie.’

Normally Atherton felt restless while this sort of thing was going on, but this time he waited patiently, allowing her to cope with the shock and disbelief. After a bit he said, ‘I’m sorry, but I need to ask you a few questions about her. You see, as she was out jogging when it happened, there was no form of identification on her, apart from this disc. That’s why we had to come to you. You obviously knew her quite well.’

She straightened her shoulders to do her duty, though her eyes were still unfocused with shock. ‘Well, yes. She’s been involved with the band practically from the beginning.’

‘Is she a musician?’

‘Oh, no. Well, she studied music but she doesn’t play. She has this really cool company called Solutions. She does all sorts of office-consultancy services to small businesses, the sort of things they haven’t got the time or the skills to do for themselves. Like, for us she does the PR and advertising, and she advises us about everything, even pensions and what we can claim off tax. She knows
everything,
honestly. She’s so clever. And she does all the IT stuff. She designed our website, and she found the guy to do the actual build.’

‘Was she the one who designed the strapline – the one you have over your doorbell?’

‘Do you like it?’ She was brightening as she talked, the fact of the death slipping out of her mind with the ease of self-defence. Humankind cannot bear too much reality. Unconsciously she slipped into the present tense again. ‘She’s really brilliant at things like that. I mean, words are really her thing. It was her that thought up our name, Baroque Solid. I mean, cool, or what? Because that’s what jazz fans used to say about really cool jazz in the old days, in the fifties or whatever. They used to say it was “solid”. So it’s a kind of cute name, don’t you think?’

Atherton did think, had thought a long time back, and rather wished that this divine creature had some of the dear departed’s skill with words. ‘Was she actually at the recording session on Monday?’ he asked.

‘She wouldn’t have missed it. It was her idea. She set it up and booked the studio and everything. She was going to do all the PR for it, and she’d already worked out the list of people to send the demo disc to. I dropped the band copy round to her yesterday evening so that she could listen to it before the mixing session on Friday. We couldn’t have that without her. She was always our best critic.’ Reality came back and smacked her round the ear. Her lips trembled. ‘But she won’t be there now, will she? I can’t believe she’s dead. I only saw her yesterday.’

‘You saw her yesterday?’ Atherton asked. ‘What time would that be?’

‘Well, I picked up the copies of the disc from the studio at about six o’clock and took one round to her house straight away, because she lives nearest. Then I dropped the boys’ and Trish’s off, and brought the others back here for Joni and Tab and me.’

‘You actually saw her when you called at her house?’

‘Oh, yes. Well, she’d just got in. She was still in the hall in her business suit sorting the mail when I rang the bell, hadn’t even put her briefcase away. We had a bit of a chat but she seemed in a hurry, and she said she had to get changed to go out, so I said, “See you on Friday,” and that was that.’

‘So you left at what time?’

‘Half past six, maybe. I wasn’t there long.’

‘And did you see her later? Or speak to her?’

‘Well, no.’ There were tears in her eyes now.

‘Do you know where she was going that evening?’

‘No, she didn’t say and I didn’t ask. She seemed a bit – well, preoccupied.’

‘I don’t suppose it matters,’ Atherton said. He had asked out of habit. If she was the victim of a random killing it didn’t matter where she had been or with whom. ‘Well, you’ve been very helpful in identifying her for us. It’s saved us a lot of time. And now I wonder if you could give me her address?’

‘Oh, yes, of course,’ she said, rather hopelessly, and then pulled herself together. ‘I’ve got one of her invoices here. She worked from home.’

Across the top of the invoice in large, heavy, raised type was the name ‘SOLUTIONS’ in caps. Under it in slightly smaller caps it said, ‘
OFFICE CONSULTANCY FOR SMALL BUSINESS AND SELF-EMPLOYED
’
.
And under that, in yet smaller type, in italics, upper and lower,
‘PR and IT Solutions and Much More’.

The address was Wingate Road, a two-minute walk, if that, from the park gates.

Marion Davies showed him out, and at the door he turned back and said, ‘By the way, just one more question.’

‘Yes?’ She raised her large, tear-polished eyes to him.

‘Are you doing anything tonight?’

Slider always felt that Freddie Cameron, the forensic pathologist, was out of place against the backdrop of the mortuary of a modern steel-glass-and-concrete hospital. There was something quintessentially old-fashioned and gentlemanly about him, with his good suit, bow-tie and polished brogues (he always changed from black shoes to brown at the beginning of Henley week). He belonged with Victorian architecture and solid values. He was marble, not corian; leather, not plastic; solid mahogany, not veneered furniture board.

He was also looking seriously overworked. His eyes were red-rimmed and dark-bagged.

‘Been making a night of it?’ Slider enquired politely.

‘You might say. Hannah had her baby last night – or, rather, early this morning – and since Andy’s abroad, Martha and I stayed with her all through. It was a harrowing experience, I can tell you.’

‘Why couldn’t Andy get leave?’ Freddie’s son-in-law was a high-earning oil-rig engineer.

‘The baby’s three weeks early. He’s on his way now, but he was in some God-forsaken backwater of Kazakhstan, and it’ll take him twenty-four hours to get home.’ He sighed a profoundly weary sigh. ‘I’m at the age when I need my zeds. To be fair, Martha did say at one point I should go home and leave it to her, but I couldn’t do that.’

‘Of course not.’ Slider knew that Hannah was Freddie’s favourite daughter.

Cameron met his eyes. ‘It looked a bit touch-and-go at one point,’ he said, and the starkness of his expression underlined the English understatement of the words.

‘She’s all right now?’

‘Both all right. Another boy. They’re going to call it Seth, poor little blighter. Mind you, if it had been a girl it would have been Daisy. Where do they get these names from? So I left Martha there at about half past six this morning, dashed home for a shower and a shave and was out doing my list at half past eight. It never seems to get any shorter. I could do without extras from you, thank you very much.’

‘Sorry. Not my idea of fun either,’ said Slider. ‘It was good of you to fit me in.’

‘Oh, I’d sooner get it out of the way. Don’t want to be like a proctologist and get behind in my work.’

‘Is this your last?’

‘Yes, thank God. I might be home by nine with a bit of luck. I laugh at a mere twelve-hour day.’

The morgue attendants came in with the trolley and Cameron received the park corpse with the air of a long-haul passenger facing the fourth airline meal of the flight. ‘What is it with you and parks anyway, dear boy?’ he enquired of Slider. ‘Some kind of symbiotic relationship?’

‘I could do without it,’ Slider said. ‘And I hate a serial.’

‘The Park Killer must have read what a good job you did on the Baxter case,’ said Cameron. ‘Deep down, they all want to be caught, you know. Subconscious desire for a father’s discipline.’

‘Are you qualified to practise psychiatry?’ Slider asked coldly.

‘Not me, old bean. I’m a corpse-cutter from way back. Got an ID on this one?’

‘Atherton’s working on it as we speak.’

‘Good. I hate to think of a pretty young thing like this going unclaimed.’ He stared a moment at the face. ‘When you think what went into the making of this work of art, it makes me mad as hell that someone could destroy it so lightly. I think that’s why I became a forensic pathologist.’

‘You told me it was because dead men don’t sue,’ Slider objected.

‘There is that,’ Freddie agreed. ‘Well, let’s see what we’ve got.’

The TV image of the lonely pathologist toiling away in solitude was the stuff of fiction. What with Cameron’s assistants,
his students, the morgue attendants, the identifying officer, the photographer, the evidence officer, the investigating officer, his bagman, old Uncle Tom Cobbley and all, there was always a crowd around the table. With the new tables that constantly drew the fluids away from underneath, there was little or no smell. But Freddie handed round the Trebors out of old habit. With so many onlookers, the miasma of peppermint could have felled a horse.

Cameron pressed the recording pedal under the table with his foot whenever he murmured his commentary; in between he whistled softly, a habit he had developed in the early days to distract him from distress. The ‘Songs for Swingin’ Carvers’ selection today was ‘April in Paris’.

‘Subject is female, aged about twenty-eight or -nine, height five feet six, well nourished, appears fit and well muscled, no apparent signs of disease or drug dependency.’

McLaren, as evidence officer, received the clothes as they were removed and examined, and bagged them. Cameron examined the T-shirt, bent to look at the wounds, and at last said to Slider, ‘Tell me, old chum, was there anything that struck you as odd about our friend here?’

‘I did think there wasn’t as much blood as I’d have expected,’ Slider said tentatively.