Necrocrip (23 page)

‘And before that?’

‘I can’t remember his name, the one before. Had a lot of x’s in it. Of course, they change the spelling these days, don’t they? I remember the days when Peking was Peking. I never got to know him, really – kept himself to himself. A bit unfriendly – but perfectly respectable. And then we had one a couple of years ago – Peter Ling. He was here a long time. I got very fond of him. He used to say I was like a mother to him. Gave me a box of chocs when he left – Black Magic. Not that I like them,’ she confided, flinging the green blouse over a chair back and hoiking a red one out of the basket. ‘Too many hard centres. Dairy Box, now, that’s the chocs I like – but how was he to know? It’s the thought that counts, that’s what I say.’

‘That room up there – next to Ronnie’s – you seem to keep it specially for the Chinese, don’t you?’ Slider said conversationally.

She was unconcerned by the question, speaking in jerks as she thumped the iron up the blouse’s armpits. ‘Just the three. Coincidence, probably. Or maybe they pass the word around, I don’t know. I’d sooner have
them
than a lot of others I can think of,’ she added emphatically. ‘They don’t make trouble, and they leave the place clean.’

‘So they just turned up, looking for a room?’ She grunted through the cigarette, which might have meant assent or merely indifference. ‘How did they know it was vacant? Was it advertised?’

‘
I
don’t know,’ she said robustly. ‘Not my business.’

‘Well, whose business is it?’ No answer. ‘Who sends along the new tenants when a room becomes vacant?’

‘I look after the house, clean it, change the sheets. I’m paid to mind my own business. I’ve been here ten years – d’you think I want to be thrown out on the street?’ she said angrily, smacking the iron down onto the red blouse’s death throes.

He decided to try a little pressure. ‘Mrs Sullivan, you’ve got at least three girls in this house who are operating as prostitutes. Mandy says it was you who interviewed her when she came for the room, and that you knew what her trade was.’

She put down the iron and actually removed the cigarette from her mouth to face him and say, ‘Look, mister, this is a clean house and no trouble. What the girls get up to is their business. If they want to sleep with a different man every night, it’s not against the law.’

‘Prostitution isn’t illegal,’ Slider agreed, ‘but running a brothel is, and so is living off immoral earnings.’

‘Now you listen to me! I’ve never taken a penny from any of those girls, and nor would I! I’m a good Catholic, and I wouldn’t dirty me hands with the wages of sin. You want to mind what you’re saying to a decent woman.’

She seemed genuinely outraged, but Slider thought he detected a shadow of fear behind it. He pressed his advantage home. ‘I believe you, Kathleen, but the magistrates may not, especially as you’ve got one or two little things on your record already.’ This was a shot in the dark, but it seemed to be on target. She was silent, looking at the ironing-board in a troubled way.

‘I’ve no wish to make trouble for you. All I want is a bit of help. You answer my questions honestly, and you’ve nothing to worry about. Don’t forget I’m investigating a very serious crime. You don’t want to get mixed up in that, do you?’

‘What do you want to know?’ she asked in a subdued voice.

‘About the Chinese boys,’ he began.

‘If it’s Lee Chang you’re wondering about,’ she said quickly, looking up, ‘you’re barking up the wrong tree. He was as respectable as they come – American he was. He worked up at the NATO base.’

‘At Northwood?’ Slider said, and she nodded; but even as he said it, other things were beginning to click into place. Northwood was practically next door to Chorleywood. And someone had mentioned Chorleywood before, in this very house. ‘Tell me about the rooms – what happens when they become vacant?’

‘The first and second floor rooms I deal with,’ she said with obvious reluctance. ‘I advertise them, or sometimes I know someone who’s wanting a room. It’s down to me who I take in.’

‘But not the top floor rooms. Ronnie’s room and the one the Chinese boy had.’ She shook her head. ‘What happens about those?’

‘People are sent.’

‘Who sends them?’

‘The owner.’

‘And who is that?’

She opened her mouth and shut it again. She seemed to want to tell him, but not to be able to get it out past some powerful taboo.

‘I’ll help you out, shall I?’ Slider said kindly. ‘Mandy said you told her the owner was very rich, and had a big house in Chorleywood. A big, Hollywood-style house with a swimming pool, is it?’

She found her voice. ‘I’ve never been there.’

‘No, well you wouldn’t have, would you? No wonder Ronnie was so reliable and grateful – he owed him everything, didn’t he – his job and his home? Poor Ronnie. He must have felt really bad about letting him down. So bad, he preferred to kill himself.’

‘That’s right,’ she said.

‘Funny thing, though,’ Slider said conversationally, ‘that this great man wants the fact that he owns this house kept secret. You’d think with all the good he does – providing clean accommodation at a reasonable rent – that he wouldn’t be so coy about it. You’d think he wouldn’t mind people knowing.’

‘You won’t tell him I told you?’ she said anxiously.

‘You haven’t told me anything,’ Slider pointed out. ‘Not even his name.’

That’s right, I haven’t,’ she realised with relief.

‘And what’s more, I’m not going to ask you,’ he said. ‘Aren’t I a nice copper? And in return, you aren’t going to tell him I was asking, are you?’

‘I know when to keep me mouth shut,’ she said tersely.

‘Yes, you do, don’t you?’ said Slider.

THE TURNING OFF THE MAIN
road dropped steeply through a wood for a couple of hundred yards, between high banks overhung with trees so that it was like driving in a green tunnel. Then suddenly the horizon opened out to a view over the Chess Valley, the road did a right-angled bend, and there was the entrance to Colin Cate’s house, set back a little off the road – a pair of massive, wrought-iron, electronically operated gates, backed with heavy duty wire mesh to prevent an anorexic burglar slipping between the bars. Beyond the gates the drive curved between high banks of rhododendrons. You couldn’t see the house.

Slider pulled up on the gravel in front of the gate, and saw the security camera mounted on the top of the gatepost swing round to goggle at him. He climbed out of the car and breathed in the sweet country air of May, heard a wood pigeon burbling in a tree close by, blackbirds, sparrows and chaffinches making a pleasant background noise further off, and somewhere out of sight within the grounds several dogs barking excitedly.

He walked up to the gates. They surprised him a little, for despite what Barrington and Fergus had said, he had not quite grasped how rich and powerful a man he was dealing with. Ordinary mortals, even pleasantly well-off mortals, did not protect their property to this extent. The gates were impregnable to anything much less than an APC with a determined driver, and there was an enamel plate screwed on high up showing a silhouette of a
Dobermann Pinscher and the words ‘DANGER! Grounds protected by loose dogs’. The idea of loose dogs made him wrinkle his nose: he made a mental note to watch where he was stepping.

The camera was still poking its long nose at him, and he saw set into the gatepost an intercom grille and buzzer. He pressed the button, and after a moment the grille hissed and spat and said, ‘Yes? What do you want?’

‘I’d like to see Colin Cate, please,’ Slider said, feeling, as he always did when speaking to a wall, faintly hilarious. ‘My name is Slider – Detective Inspector Slider. It’s about—’

‘Yes, all right,’ the grill squawked. ‘Drive in.’

Slider got back in the car and started the engine as the gate began slowly to open. He drove through, and saw in his rear-view that it began to close immediately behind him. He followed the drive past the rhododendron walls and it led round the curve to the car park, a flat, tarmac platform set into the hillside, which surrounded it on two sides and was terraced with low walls and shrubs and a zigzag of steps leading up. He noted that there were a bright red BMW and a maroon Ford Sierra already parked there, side by side and nose to the wall. With a vague instinct of self preservation he swung round and parked with his tail to the terrace wall and his nose facing outwards for a quick getaway.

He got out. Facing him was the open side of the platform, a view past the trees over the valley into the blue distance. It was quiet, and the sun was straight and hot, making him think of high Alpine meadows. Turning, he looked up at the terraced hillside and saw, some fifty feet further up, just a glimpse of the house, a red roof and a glint of windows amongst the greenery. Should he go up? He thought of the loose dogs and hesitated, and then saw that someone had appeared at the top of the steps and was coming down to meet him. It was Colin Cate, dressed in slacks and a dark blue open-necked shirt. Wound round his hand he had the lead-chain of a very fit-looking, larger-than-average Dobermann.

Slider stood still until Cate arrived in front of him.
Cate’s eyes were screwed up against the sun, but he was smiling a pleasant if slightly quizzical smile. The dog leaned against its collar and panted, its frilled pink tongue dripping between the white, white teeth, its yellow cat’s eyes gleaming as it strained to reach him. It was smiling, too, an unpleasant if slightly anticipatory smile.

‘Hullo! Bill, isn’t it? What brings you here?’ Cate said. ‘New developments?’

‘I’d just like a few words, if that’s all right,’ Slider said neutrally.

‘Must be important to bring you out here on a Sunday.’

‘Oh, I don’t live very far away,’ Slider said. ‘I hope I’m not disturbing your family lunch?’

‘As a matter of fact, I’m on my own.’ He turned towards the steps, inviting Slider to follow. ‘Come and have a drink by the pool. I was doing some paperwork. The wife’s gone to visit her mother for a week or so.’ They climbed. ‘Are you married?’

‘Yes.’

‘Kids?’

‘Two. A boy and a girl.’

‘Just right. I’ve got too bloody many. Two boys by my first wife – live with their mother – and three by my present encumbrance. Two boys and a girl. Away at school – cost me a fortune. Makes you wonder sometimes why you do it, doesn’t it?’

It was all as genial and pleasant and open as could be. Slider followed him up the steps, trying not to let the tension of his mind seep into his body, mindful of how sensitive guard dogs are. The house, when they came in sight of it, was modern, perhaps ten or fifteen years old, low and sprawling, set on several levels to take advantage of the hillside, and with huge windows to take advantage of the view. At the front corner of it was a curious structure like a square tower, and through its large windows Slider could see a man sitting and staring out at them.

‘You said you were on your own, sir?’ Slider said cautiously. Cate looked to see what he was looking at, and smiled.

‘Except for the security guard. Someone has to watch all those damned cameras and answer the door bell.’

Cate did not take him into the house, but down a path to the side, through a shrubbery. The sound of barking came nearer, and the shrubbery broke to reveal a large, wire-mesh compound in which half a dozen Dobermanns were running back and forth in a bored way. They broke into a fusillade of barks at the sight of the men, and one or two put their great paws up against the mesh to give them the full benefit of their physique.

‘Lovely animals, aren’t they?’ Cate said. ‘I breed ’em – hobby of mine. Do you like dogs?’

‘Yes,’ Slider said. ‘If they’re well-trained, working dogs. I don’t like yappers or lap-dogs.’

‘A dog is only as good as the man who trains him,’ Cate said.

‘I suppose you could say the same of men,’ Slider offered.

At the back of the compound was a long, low shed, presumably the kennels, and a separate small building, brick-built, with a chimney from which smoke was rising. As they passed down-wind of it, a fearful smell met them which had Slider and the Dobermann sniffing, though probably for different reasons.

Cate looked at Slider sidelong with an amused smile. ‘Whiffs a bit, doesn’t it? It’s the dog’s grub – a mixture of meat, offal and cereal. We boil it up ourselves in a huge copper. It’s called pudding.’

‘Oh yes,’ Slider said. ‘Like with foxhounds.’

‘That’s right. Do you hunt?’

‘No,’ said Slider. I will make you hunters of men, he thought. ‘But I was brought up on a farm. We used to send our dead cattle to the local hunt kennels.’

‘Well, it’s nice to know you can go on being useful even after you’re dead, isn’t it?’

They left the smells and the dogs behind, turned another corner, and came out by a large, kidney-shaped, sapphire blue swimming pool, sparkling in the sun, and equipped with diving board, changing-rooms, sun-loungers, and wrought-iron tables and chairs.

‘Take a pew,’ Cate said, waving towards a table. Slider sat, and Cate led the dog to the other chair, made it sit, and then dropped the lead. ‘Stay,’ he said. The dog looked at him, and then turned its head to fix Slider with an unwavering stare. ‘What do you want to drink? Fancy a Pimms? I’ve got a jug all ready made up.’

‘Yes, thank you, that’ll be fine,’ Slider said. He’d never seen the point of Pimms, but he’d take whatever was quickest. He didn’t really want this interview to be drawn out longer than necessary.

One of the changing-rooms must have been a bar, for Cate emerged from it in short order with a jug, two glasses and an ice-bucket on a tray. ‘You don’t want all that fruit business, I hope?’ he said cheerfully. He put down the tray and poured out two glasses, added ice, and handed one to Slider. ‘That’s just nonsense to keep the women quiet. Now when I mix a Pimms, it’s a man’s drink. Cheers!’

‘Cheers,’ said Slider, and drank. The Pimms turned out to be fire-water, and bit him on its way down. ‘Very nice,’ he said.

‘Like it?’ Cate sat opposite him. ‘The secret is equal parts of Pimms and gin, and a splash of bitters before you add the lemonade. And not too bloodymuch lemonade, either.’ He drank, put down his glass, and said, ‘Right, now what did you want to see me about?’