Necrocrip (24 page)

‘The house that Ronnie Slaughter lived in – I understand it belongs to you,’ Slider said, not making it a question.

‘Who told you that?’ Cate asked pleasantly.

‘Ronnie did,’ said Slider, putting the blame where it could do no harm.

‘Did he? Did he?’ Cate sat thoughtfully. ‘Yes, poor Ronnie!’

‘It wasn’t meant to be a secret, was it?’

‘Of course not. How could it be?’ Cate said. He sipped his drink and put it down again, resting his hand beside it. Slider glanced at the skull ring and away again. ‘I own quite a lot of property one way and another. My father said to me when I was a boy, Colin, he said, if you ever get money, buy property. You can’t go wrong with it.’ He
smiled with pleasant self-mockery. ‘I never forget I wasn’t born with a silver spoon in my mouth, you see. And on the whole, my father was right. On the whole.’

‘It must have been useful to be able to offer Slaughter a room as well as a job,’ Slider said.

‘What do you mean by that?’

‘Well, it can be hard to find somewhere to live in London. Firms often lose promising employees because they can’t find a flat they can afford.’

Cate looked him over carefully. ‘If you’ve got something to ask me, Inspector, ask it. I don’t like innuendo.’

‘I wasn’t implying anything, sir,’ Slider said. ‘You must be sorry to have lost Ronnie. You said yourself he was a good manager.’

‘He was,’ Cate said shortly. ‘But I don’t think you came here to talk about Ronnie’s accommodation problems. What is it you want to know?’

‘About the Chinese men who stayed in the room next to Ronnie’s.’

‘What about them?’

‘It just seems an odd coincidence that there should have been three of them, one after the other, and odd coincidences start me wondering. You’ll understand that, having been a copper yourself. I suppose it’s curiosity that makes us take up the job in the first place, isn’t it?’

Cate nodded, which might or might not have been acknowledgement of the point. ‘It’s not as great a coincidence as it seems, I’m afraid. There was Peter Ling, who worked in one of my computer shops – he was Chinese to look at, but he came from North Kensington actually. The second man, Chou Xiang Xu, was attached to the Science and Technology section of the Chinese Embassy, over here looking into new computer developments. A business colleague of mine at IBM asked me to put him up. And the third one, Lee Chang, in fact was American, attached to the NATO base at Northwood, and a friend of mine put him on to me because he knew I sometimes had rooms to let. He was only there for a few weeks. Now is there anything sinister in that?’

‘Nothing at all. I didn’t think there would be,’ Slider
said with perfect truth. ‘I was just puzzled by the coincidence, that’s all.’

‘Apparent
coincidence,’ Cate corrected.

Slider sipped his drink. ‘It’s a lovely place you’ve got here,’ he said.

‘Yes,’ Cate assented. ‘I’m always surprised it can be so rural so near to London.’

‘My wife would love us to move out to Chorleywood,’ Slider said. ‘Ruislip is getting a bit rough these days. Have you had much trouble with break-ins here? I was very impressed with your security arrangements.’

‘If an ex-copper can’t keep himself safe, who can?’ Cate said amiably. ‘I’ve worked hard for what’s mine, and I mean to keep it. My dad had one fish and chip shop, that was all, in Westbourne Park Road. We lived above the shop, Mum, Dad and four of us kids, and everything smelled of frying fat. We used to fry in dripping in those days, of course, and you could never get the smell out of your hair. I went to the local council school, and the other kids used to make fun of me – called me the Greasy Pole. I was skinny in those days – well, there wasn’t much to eat except left-over fish and chips, and I couldn’t stomach ’em, after smelling ’em all day. I swore to myself one day I’d be rich, and never have to eat fried fish again.’

Scarlett O’Hara again, Slider thought. As God is my witness, I’ll never be hungry again.

Cate drained his glass and fixed Slider with the look of one who has reached the point of his whole narrative. ‘I started off as a potato boy – just like poor old Ronnie Slaughter. I left school when I was fifteen to work in my Dad’s shop. Now I own eight of ’em – besides the other bits and pieces. I’ve never looked back. I felt sorry for Ronnie, and I tried to do him a favour, but I suppose I should have left him to struggle on his own. You can’t help people, they have to help themselves. He let me down.’

‘Let you down?’

‘He killed that boy, Leman, didn’t he?’ Cate said. ‘Well, at least he’s paid for it. Better than wasting the taxpayer’s money bringing the case to court. I’d have thought Barrington would have closed it by now.’

‘Yes sir,’ Slider said. ‘There is just one thing I wanted to ask you. You told me that Ronnie Slaughter wrote to you in reply to your advertisement for the job of manager of Dave’s Fish Bar?’

‘Yes. What about it?’

‘I wondered if by any chance you still had that letter? It would round things off nicely if we could match his handwriting against the suicide note, just to be absolutely sure. All we have is his signature on a statement, and you know yourself, sir, that that isn’t enough to go by.’

Cate looked thoughtful. ‘No, I’m afraid I wouldn’t still have it.’

‘I was afraid of that,’ Slider said.

‘However,’ Cate went on, ‘I think I do have a note from Ronnie upstairs in my office somewhere. I remember seeing it the other day when I was looking for something. It’s only short, but it may be enough. I’ll go and get it, if you’d like to have a look at it.’

‘Yes, thank you, if you don’t mind,’ said Slider. Cate got up and went into the house, leaving Slider and the dog facing each other. The animal’s unwinking stare took the edge off the excitement he would otherwise have been feeling. Was he about to get his break-through after all? He almost smiled in anticipation, and the dog shuffled its bottom an inch nearer. Its muzzle was now only three inches from Slider’s left knee, and the drippings from its tongue were wetting the toecap of his shoe.

At last Cate came out, carrying a piece of paper.

‘Sorry to have been so long,’ he said. ‘I couldn’t put my hand to it at first. Here you are. Not very exciting reading.’

Slider took it and put it down on the table in front of him. It was a page which had been torn out of a small, ruled pocket note-book, written in pencil in what appeared to be the same clumsy script as the suicide note.

Mr Cate, we need 90 skinless cod, 25 kilos mozza meal, and 25 kilos rice cone for the special order. Also 100 steak pies. Thanks. Ronnie.

‘It was some stuff he wanted me to order for a big party because it was too short notice for the usual supplier,’ Cate explained.

‘I see,’ Slider said. ‘But can we be sure it was him that wrote it, though? It might have been one of his assistants writing to his dictation.’

Cate smiled expansively. ‘Ah, well as it happens, you’re in luck there. I remember that on that particular day I was going to call in at the shop on my way past in the afternoon, during the closed period, and I asked him to leave me a note of what he needed. But I arrived earlier than I expected, and he was still there, writing the note.’

‘You actually saw him writing it?’

‘Yes, as I came in,’ said Cate.

Slider smiled. ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘That’s very useful.’ He stood up to take his leave. ‘I’ll take this with me, if I may. Put it to the handwriting expert, see if it’s the same as the suicide note. But I’m sure I’ll find that it is.’

Cate took up the dog’s lead again, and as Slider met his eyes there was something quizzical in them. He wondered if he had overplayed his hand. But all Cate said was, ‘I’ll see you out.’

‘Thank you, sir. I’m sorry to have disturbed you.’

‘Oh, you haven’t disturbed me,’ Cate said pleasantly.

As Slider came in from the yard he bumped into O’Flaherty on his way back from the front shop.

‘Barrington’s after you – bing-bonging the place down. There’s a bounty in gold offered for the first man t’ sight you.’ He grinned. ‘How about dat? Moby Dick spotted by a Dopey Mick.’

Slider made a disgusted face. ‘What’s he doing in, anyway?’

‘It’s his little way, so I’m told, when there’s overtime bein’ clocked up. He’s been in this hour, doin’ his Demon King impersonation, poppin’ up here and poppin’ up there. You never know where he’ll be next.’

‘Oh well, I suppose I’d better go and see what he wants.’

‘Put newspaper down your trousers,’ Fergus advised his retreating back.

Barrington’s room smelled of sulphur, and flickers of lightning were playing round his brow when Slider presented himself.

‘What the devil are you playing at?’ he demanded angrily, without preamble. ‘Sir?’

‘I’ve just had a telephone call from Colin Cate, saying you’ve been round there bothering him with inane questions. And after I specifically warned you that we had to tread carefully with him! We’ve already let ourselves down with him once, and you have to go plunging in, spoiling his weekend, annoying him, and making a complete fool of yourself,
and
me,
and
the Department! Now he thinks we’re a bunch of clodhopping bozos. What the hell did you go barging in there for? Why didn’t you clear it with me first?’

Slider was surprised. ‘I didn’t think I needed permission to follow up a line of enquiry, sir. We’ve always—’

‘I don’t care how you’ve done things in the past!’ Barrington said, his eyes as yellow and baleful as the Dobermann’s. ‘My predecessor may have run this place like a boarding house, but that’s not my way. I’m in charge of this investigation, and you do not go annoying respectable members of the public without checking with me first.’

‘Sir,’ Slider said woodenly. It was proving an invaluable monosyllable in his relationship with Mad Ivan.

Barrington stood up and went to look out of his window, a movement of restlessness by a man of action unwillingly confined. Probably at that moment he would have liked to have thumped somebody. ‘And what was this “line of enquiry” anyway, which was so important and urgent?’ he asked, his back intimidatingly to Slider.

Slider told him. Half way through Barrington turned back to look at him with wild incredulity.

‘Are you seriously telling me that you went badgering Colin Cate –
the
Colin Cate – for that? Are you trying to tell me that you think – I just don’t believe this!’ he interrupted himself with a hand gesture and a short pacing walk one way and then the other – ‘You think that
he
murdered Slaughter and faked the suicide note?’

‘He said he actually saw Slaughter write that note, sir. He must have been lying, and why would he do that if not—’

‘You take the word of a slut of a call-girl rather than him? A half-witted tom tells you that Slaughter was illiterate, and that’s enough to make you believe Colin Cate is a murderer?’ Barrington shook his asteroid head again in disbelief. ‘I really think you must be sick in the head, Slider. Perhaps you need a holiday. Perhaps I ought to take you off this case – it seems to be getting too much for you.’

Slider kept his hands down at his sides, and his eyes on his shoes.

‘Did Mr Cate say anything more about the note, sir?’

‘There wasn’t anything
to
say. I didn’t know any more than he did what you wanted it for. He was very polite about the whole thing, in fact – he just said he couldn’t understand why such routine enquiries were being carried out at overtime rates. Reminded me that we are accountable to the taxpayer. But I could tell he was angry, and with good cause – oh, and yes, it seems you didn’t tell him that we’ve discovered Peter Leman is alive after all.’

Slider was startled. ‘No sir.’

‘No sir? What does that mean? You don’t think he has the right to know that an employee of his we thought had been murdered was alive and well? He was pretty annoyed about that, too. He said he couldn’t understand why you didn’t tell him, unless you suspected him of something, and that if you suspected him, he wished you’d have said so openly. He could have told you then that he didn’t leave the house at all on the night Slaughter died, or on the night of the chip-shop murder, and that he could show his security guard’s records to prove it if you were really worried.’

‘Did Mr Cate volunteer that, sir?’ Slider asked, intrigued.

Barrington glowered. ‘Yes, and I’m ashamed that an officer under my command should have made him think it was necessary. He couldn’t be more willing to help in any way he can with this investigation, but you go and set his back up, behaving like an amateur gumshoe in a econd-rate movie!’

Try as he might, Slider couldn’t bring himself to slip a
‘sorry, sir’ into the space Barrington left for it. He stood silent and thoughtful, and after a moment, Barrington went on.

‘Let me make this clear, Slider: I don’t expect you to bother him again on any pretext. If anything comes up that he ought to know about, or if there’s anything you need to ask him, you come to me. Do you understand?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Very well. And for Christ’s sake get on and find out who the victim was, so that we can close this case. If we can’t cover ourselves with glory we can at least try to be cost-effective. There is such a thing as budget, you know.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘I’m not pleased with the way you’re handling this case, I don’t mind telling you. I shall have to consider whether or not to replace you. So bear in mind that you’re on probation now. Don’t screw up again.’

Slider was sitting at his desk when his phone rang, and simultaneously Atherton burst in, with Mackay close behind him.

‘It’s Leman, Guv,’ Atherton said urgently, gesturing towards the telephone. ‘Rang up asking for you.’

‘Get a trace on it,’ Slider said, reaching out his hand to the instrument.

‘We’re doing that.’

‘Good. Keep quiet, then. I’ll put it on Talk.’

He picked up the receiver and pressed the button at the same time. ‘Detective Inspector Slider,’ he said.

Leman’s voice emerged small but clear from the loudspeaker. ‘Is that Mr Slider? It’s Peter Leman here. Suzanne’s boyfriend. You know, Suzanne Edrich.’