Necrocrip (32 page)

‘No, I don’t know who it was,’ Cole said, and then, meeting Slider’s eyes, ‘I’d tell you if I did. Barry says I’ve to tell you everything.’

‘Did you ever hear a hint while you were in prison, from another prisoner, for instance? A suspicion about who was behind it?’

Cole shook his head again. ‘I dunno if Barry might know,’ he added. ‘He knows everyone. He might’ve heard.’

Barry was obviously slated to take Blackburn’s place as Jimmy Cole’s instructor, boss, and hero. Well, he must be better for him than Blackburn.

HAVING ENJOINED COLE TO ABSOLUTE
silence on the subject, and advised him to see Seedy about a job, Slider saw him home and then went back to his car. The beer had blown him out, and acting on his empty stomach and his tension it was giving him heartburn. There was a tight knot of pain under his ribs which was probably wind but felt like an impending heart attack. He was aching with tiredness, and thought longingly of Joanna. Would she be home, awake, thinking of him? He wanted her so badly he was hallucinating the smell of her skin. He wanted to bury himself in her up to the eyebrows and never come out again.

He had been driving without direction, but now he saw a telephone box up ahead beside the road. He stopped alongside it, put on the handbrake, reached for the ignition. In his mind he had run on ahead, gone into the box, shoved in the money, dialled, heard her answer. But there he stopped. What could he say to her? Take me back, and I promise I’ll leave Irene? But he couldn’t leave Irene. That was what it had all been about, wasn’t it? Joanna had known it before him. He couldn’t do it. It was wrong, that was all, and there was enough wrong in the world without him adding to it.

He put the car back in gear, took off the handbrake, drove on. Irene had done nothing to deserve to be hurt. She had always been a good and faithful wife, and if he didn’t love her, that was his fault, not hers. And the
children – all the experts said they preferred having their own two parents, however ill-matched, to a break-up. All right, so he knew what he had to do. He had to go home, and try to be a good husband and father in the time that was left.

But not yet. The prospect filled him with such a sense of emptiness that he could not face it. Besides, he rationalised instantly, he had to discuss the case with somebody – not with somebody, with Atherton. He had to keep him up to date on developments. And he had to check Atherton’s answering-machine for replies from America. He would ring home from there, and explain that he would be working all night again.

‘So you think the Big Man, whoever he was,’ said Atherton, ‘was reassured by Cole’s complete stupidity, and didn’t feel anything needed to be done about him, one way or the other?’

‘It’s a fact that he hasn’t been able to do any harm,’ Slider said. He was sitting in the big armchair with one of Atherton’s magnificent club sandwiches on a plate on his lap, and a glass of whisky on one broad arm of the chair. On the other arm Oedipus was sitting. He had his eyes tightly shut as though to avoid temptation, but his diesel-engine purr gave him away.

Slider was aware of a sense of comfort – of having been comforted, perhaps. Atherton had taken him in, had agreed that he should stay the night, had fed and watered him. And when he had phoned Irene, she had been understanding. She didn’t mind at all, she said – and by the way, did he think he’d be home tomorrow evening? Probably not; why? Oh, it was just an invitation to supper with Marilyn and David and Ernie Newman. It was a last-minute invitation, but Bernice was free to babysit. David and Marilyn’s photos from their holiday in Turkey had come back and they were going to show them. Why didn’t she go anyway, without him? Well, she’d quite like to, if he really didn’t mind. And Slider had said, with perfect truth, that he didn’t, and that he was glad she wouldn’t be
left alone at home for yet another evening.

So with Irene at least partly off his conscience, he was able to enjoy Atherton’s hospitality, and unburden his mind of one part of the problem.

‘Anyway, would you put Cole in the box with any confidence?’ he continued.

‘The CPS certainly wouldn’t,’ Atherton said, ‘which is more to the point. But if Cole was telling the truth about the shots, it means that there was someone else in the passage. Unless you’re suggesting that it was Dickson fired the shots? No, cancel that,’ he added hastily as Slider looked up. ‘Of course it wasn’t him.’ He took a bite of his own sandwich, and Oedipus’s eyes opened a yellow crack to watch for falling prawns. ‘But then, who?’

‘The way I see it,’ Slider said slowly, ‘is that, assuming for the moment that Cole is telling the truth, Blackburn must have known who fired those shots. Either he saw the man and recognised him when he looked round, or he had a telephone call later that night about it. My feeling is that it was both. If he didn’t know who had fired the shots, I can’t believe he wouldn’t have said something to Cole on the drive home. But he simply told him to keep his mouth shut. Later that night he telephoned and confirmed the instructions. He was completely confident that it would be all right, and went on being confident until he found himself banged up in gaol and no appeal in the offing. Then he started to complain loudly and vociferously.’

‘And got knifed.’

‘Very professionally. All right, then who did he see in the passage? It must surely either have been the Big Man, whoever he was, or someone who worked for him, otherwise why the confidence?’

Slider put down his sandwich and looked steadily, if a little reluctantly, at his friend.

‘I think it was Cate. Look,’ he ticked off on his fingers, ‘he discovers Blackburn’s still inside the pub when the raid is about to start, because the man with the goods hasn’t turned up. So he tips Blackburn off, gives him alternative instructions, which involve escaping from the back door. Barrington’s orders about covering the back door were
changed just before the raid started. Dickson messed it up by not following his orders to the letter. Cate afterwards blamed Dickson for Field’s death, saying he should have obeyed his orders and stayed outside.’

Atherton shook his head unhappily. ‘Go on. If it was Cate, why do you think he shot the two detectives?’

‘We know he went in at the front when the raid started. He probably met Barrington coming through from the back, and went out there just to check that his two pals were safely off the premises. He’d have to order a thorough search at some point, or it would look odd. Maybe he meant to see them getting away over the roofs and give the alarm when it was just too late. I don’t know about that. But when he came through into the end of the passage what he saw was disaster – the two DCs between his men and the door. I think he fired off a couple of rounds in sheer desperation, probably meaning to scare Field and Wilson so that Blackburn and Cole could run past them, but he hit them instead. In the event, that did just as well, because once he’d planted the gun in Blackburn’s wardrobe – and remember, he went in person to do the search – he could be sure Blackburn would go down and be put away where he could do no harm. And afterwards, when Blackburn started complaining – it’s easy enough for someone with criminal connections to get a man inside done away with, especially if he’s a foul-mouthed, unpleasant sort of a bastard.’

There was a silence when he stopped speaking, except for the ticking of the clock and the purring of the cat. Then Atherton said, ‘It’s the whole cloth, Guv. I can’t see anyone believing it. I don’t really believe it myself. You’ve no proof that Cate ever did anything dishonest in his life, much less was involved with criminal activities. He’s a respected businessman now – all right, I know you don’t have much of an opinion of businessmen, but he’s well-respected in police and government circles too. The only suspicious circumstance is the change to Barrington’s orders, which coincided with Blackburn’s instructions for getting out. But someone could have overheard Cate telling Barrington, and dashed off to phone.’

‘Only another policeman. No-one else could have got near enough to hear. And how could he have got away from everyone to use the phone?’

‘How could Cate?’

‘He was the guv’nor. He could walk away from any group, and they’d think he was going to another. He only had to nip round a dark corner. He had a mobile phone when I saw him in the golf club. He could have had one that night.’

Atherton tried again. ‘But surely if what you believe is true someone must have suspected something – Barrington, at least. Or Dickson.’

‘I think they did, I think Barrington suspected very badly, and that’s why he’s so protective of Cate now, and admires him so much. The more he admires him, the more he can put those suspicions away in a box he never opens. Cate is the untouchable to him. And I think Dickson also suspected, maybe suspected before that day that Cate’s many connections with the underworld were more than just for information-gathering. Possibly he voiced some tentative doubts to Barrington – which is why Barrington hated him so much. And perhaps why Dickson distrusted the top brass. And perhaps—’ He stopped.

‘Perhaps why top brass was always so down on Dickson?’ Atherton guessed shrewdly. ‘Come on, Bill, that’s going too far. If you’re beginning to suspect grand conspiracy—’

‘Not grand conspiracy. Just a huddling together in the face of a cold wind.’ He stared at his hand, rubbing it thoughtfully. ‘You can have doubts about someone almost without knowing it, and then feel guilty because you’ve doubted him. And Cate was very charming and popular, which Dickson never was. Given a choice of who to support—’

Atherton finished his sandwich without tasting it, stood up, reached for Slider’s glass. ‘Refill?’ He crossed to the table, poured more whisky for both, and returned to his seat. ‘Well, what are you going to do with this?’ he asked at last.

‘Nothing,’ Slider said. ‘I’ve thought and thought, but I can’t see that there’s anything to be done. The only
remaining witness is Cole, and he doesn’t know much, and would never be believed anyway. And as you say, I’ve no proof of anything, and if I can’t convince you that my suspicions are reasonable, I’ll never convince anyone else.’

‘Then – all this was for nothing?’

‘I had to do it,’ Slider said. Once I’d started wondering—’

‘Yes, I see that.’

‘And injustice to Dickson.’

Atherton did not concur with that. Dead was dead. Nothing could improve Dickson’s lie now.

‘But it’s important anyway,’ Slider went on, ‘as part of the whole picture about Cate. I think he was a dodgy number when he was in the Job, and when he left it, I think he went on being dodgy. And I think he’s up to something very big at the moment which we happen to have stumbled across the corner of. It wouldn’t surprise me if he hadn’t set the whole thing up on Dickson’s ground for the very reason that Dickson would be the last person to accuse him of anything publicly – or the second-last, I should say. Because when Dickson died – well, Barrington’s appointment was very quick, wasn’t it? Suppose somebody had put in a word for him – someone with the ear of the Commissioner, and with both reputation and influence in elevated circles? What do you think?’

Atherton sighed. ‘Honestly?’

‘Honestly.’

‘I think you’re mad. No, I think you’re tired. I think you ought to down that scotch and go to bed. You can have my bed, if you like, and I’ll sleep on the sofa. You need a good night’s sleep more than I do. And tomorrow—’

‘Tomorrow I may get some answers from America,’ Slider said. ‘And I’ve got one more person to see – someone who may have quite a lot to tell me about Mr Cate. But there are some things I’d like you to do for me.’

‘You’re incorrigible,’ Atherton said. ‘All right. What?’

‘Ask your friend Kim if there’s any way he can get information out of the Chinese Embassy without going through the Foreign Office. I want to know whether Chou Xiang
Xu was here officially or unofficially and why, what his position was, and where he is now if possible.’

‘All right. What else?’

‘Try Mrs Stevens with a picture of Cate. It occurs to me that she might have mistaken silver hair for blond, given those yellow street lamps.’

For the first time Atherton looked shaken. ‘Yes,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘And if anyone would be likely to have a camel coat, it would be Cate, judging by what you’ve told me about his taste.’

‘That’s what I thought,’ said Slider.

He was sitting outside the shop in his car at half-past eight when Peter Ling arrived. Ling had the key in the lock when Slider got out of the car, and he looked round and a fleeting expression of fear crossed his face which made Slider stop dead a few feet off and reach for his card.

‘Peter Ling? I’m Detective Inspector Slider of Shepherd’s Bush CID.’

Ling smiled a little, but his eyes did not relax. ‘I was afraid you’d come to rob me,’ he said.

‘Sorry if I startled you,’ Slider said.

‘You read things all the time,’ Ling said. ‘I suppose you’re after a discount?’

‘No, nothing like that. I’d just like to ask you a few questions.’

‘Oh,’ he said uncertainly. Then, ‘You’d better come in.’

There was nothing particularly Asian about his looks, except for his very thick, very black hair, which he wore blow-waved elegantly upwards at the sides, and his dark eyes which, though they showed no epicanthic fold, seemed somehow to lack eyelids. He locked the door of the shop behind them, and said, ‘You’d better come through to the back. If anyone sees me through the window they’ll want the shop opened.’ He led the way through, and glanced back to say, ‘You’d be surprised how many policemen I get in here. You all seem to be computer mad these days.’

‘I understand from the lads at Fulham that you give them extra discount?’

‘Self defence,’ he said with another tight smile. ‘If they’re in my shop all the time, I’m less likely to be robbed.’

In the back office Ling gave Slider a chair and took another for himself. ‘Well, what can I do for you?’ he asked.

‘I want to know everything you can tell me about Colin Cate.’

An extraordinary expression came over Ling’s face, of fear, suspicion – distaste? Slider wondered what his first words would be: a denial, or perhaps just the inevitable, ‘Why do you want to know?’ But in fact Ling said nothing, and after a pause, Slider realised he didn’t intend to say anything, and that they would sit here in silence until the world turned to coal unless Slider did the next bit of talking. Most people can’t bear a silence, and feel obliged to put something into it – a fact of human nature of the greatest possible benefit to policemen. Ling’s was self-control on a grand scale – or was it perhaps caution?