Necrocrip (35 page)

‘Oh, he didn’t, of course. I think it was the fact that he was coming to England that made the whole plan possible. As to why he was needed – someone who understood the thing had to do the sales talk. No-one’s going to fork out billions of dollars without a bit of convincing that the goods are worth it. I think Chang was probably thrown in for the price,
to set the thing up for the purchasers – and as a kind of hostage.’

‘You think he went to China?’

‘He had to disappear very thoroughly. Sooner or later he would be connected with the missing chip, and then the whole of the western world wouldn’t be big enough to hide him in. Inside communist China he could make a new life for himself, safe from Uncle Sam’s revenge.’

‘So what had Michael Lam got to do with it? What was all that malarky in the chip shop?’

‘Michael Lam was Chang’s passport out of Britain. Cate recruited Lam and got him to do some little carrying jobs for him to get him acclimatised and test his trustworthiness. It was Lam who set up the trip to Hong Kong on his father-in-law’s behalf, remember. On the night itself, his instructions were to set off for the airport and check in early, and then come back to meet Cate at the fish bar to collect a little package to be taken to Hong Kong on Cate’s behalf.’

‘Why couldn’t he have the goods in advance? Why did he have to come back?’

‘You mean what reason was he given? Probably that the goods wouldn’t be available until later. Cate couldn’t bring them to the airport – they mustn’t be seen in public together. The chip shop was a nice private place to meet, where Cate would have a perfect right to be if spotted. And anyone who might recognise Lam wouldn’t think anything of seeing him hanging around that alley, even at night.’

‘All right,’ Atherton said. ‘Then what?’

‘Lam has to get back to Heathrow to catch his plane, so the meeting at the chip shop can’t be too late. But the shop is open until eleven – although Cate knows Ronnie has shut up early on occasion. So Peter Leman is sent along to lure the poor dope out for a drink, making sure he gets out before half past ten, and that they’re seen together in some public place – of which more later. As Ronnie and Leman go out of the front door, Cate and Chang come in at the back—’

‘How?’

‘Cate has a key to the back door. And Leman unbolts it while Ronnie’s attention is elsewhere.’

‘But Ronnie swore it was bolted when he came in the next day,’ Atherton objected.

‘Yes, I know, and that bothered me for a time. But you see I couldn’t think why Cate would make such a point of not having a front door key, except to prove he couldn’t have got in, and only Ronnie could have done the murder. If you remember Ronnie’s reactions to the mention of Cate’s name – I think Cate must have warned him on several occasions of the dire consequences if he ever left the back door unbolted. Ronnie, according to Peter Ling, adored Cate, and would do anything rather than let him down. He was also afraid of him. Now I think when we asked him if the door was bolted, he was too scared to say no, in case it got back to Mr Cate that he’d been and gone and forgotten. And I think Cate was banking on that.’

‘He may simply not have remembered whether it was or not, and assumed it was. He wasn’t very bright,’ Atherton said. ‘But look, if he had remembered and/or sworn that it was unbolted, where was Cate then?’

‘Cate had an alibi – his security guard is ready to swear he didn’t go out that night. And the lock on the back door is only a Yale – it could be slipped by anyone. Why should anyone think Cate was involved at all?’

‘Hmm. All right, go on.’

‘Where was I? Oh yes, Cate and Chang wait in the chip shop until Lam arrives back from the airport. They let him in, and kill him. Chang takes Lam’s identity, passport and the microchip, and heads off for the airport in Lam’s car to catch Lam’s flight. Of course at the other end the genuine contact waiting for Lam doesn’t see him, because he isn’t there. Lam disappears, and so does Chang. Two for the price of one.’

‘Meanwhile,’ Atherton said, ‘you’re telling me that Cate did the cutting up?’

‘Who better? He knew the place and the apparatus, and he’d spent his formative years cutting up fish in his father’s shop. If Slaughter could do it, so could Cate. Then he concealed the body in the rubbish sacks, all except the bits which might give a hint to the corpse’s identity. He washed everything down, and wiped the knives clean, and left everything as Slaughter would expect to find it. The plan, I think,’
Slider added slowly, ‘was for the body not to be discovered at all, and there was a good chance of it. The dustmen would have thrown those sacks into their truck without examining them, and they would be offloaded onto a corporation dump, where they’re moved around by mechanical grab. No-one is very interested in getting into close quarters with the stuff. And there are all sorts of scavenging animals that live at the dump – gulls, rats, crows, probably even foxes—’

‘I get the picture,’ Atherton interrupted hastily.

‘If any part of the body was discovered at the dump, it would be hell’s own job to discover where it had come from. But there was a second line of defence: if it was discovered before it left the chip shop premises, we, the investigators, would pretty soon discover that it could only have been Ronnie who committed the crime.’

‘In which assumption Ronnie unwittingly helped us by pretending the place was his,’ Atherton said. ‘He wasn’t very bright, was he, our Ronnie?’

‘Just bright enough for us to suppose he might think of wiping his prints off the knives and then put fresh ones on in the morning,’ Slider said ruefully. ‘I knew there was something wrong about the fingerprint situation, but I couldn’t—’

‘Put your finger on it? But talking of fingers, what about the one in the chips? Sheer bad luck, do you think?’

‘A bit of that, and a bit of serves-’im-right. I think Cate put the hand through the chip-cutter out of a nasty little-boy’s desire to see what would happen. Maybe he’d been fascinated by the thought all his childhood, and now was his chance to find out. But one finger went astray. Whether he didn’t notice, or whether he noticed and searched but had to leave before he could find it I don’t know. I suspect the latter. He wouldn’t have been too worried. If it did turn up, the second line of defence came on line. It was supposed to be Slaughter who did it, and as soon as we started investigating Slaughter, we’d find out about Leman.’

‘Yes, Leman of the two addresses,’ Atherton mused. ‘He courted Slaughter, went out with him, went home with him, and quarrelled with him. Perfect motive for a murder.’

‘He looked just enough superficially like Lam for the
pathologist to accept the identification. He had no background, so no-one would miss him and ask awkward questions. But on the other hand, he had gone out of his way to establish his disappearance, should anyone come asking. I think Leman was supposed to lie low until Cate saw which way our investigation went. Then, if he wasn’t needed for the role of corpse, he could have resumed his identity.’

‘And if he was to be the corpse, he’d have had to disappear permanently.’

‘Yes. Well, everything seemed to be going quite well for the conspirators, until all of a sudden we released Slaughter. If we had doubts about him, they had to be resolved. So Slaughter committed suicide, leaving that very poignant note, and the case was nicely wound up. All Barrington had to do was to sign on the dotted line and accept the bouquet. Unfortunately for Cate, Leman wouldn’t stay dead. He wasn’t quite as faithful and dependent as Cate had imagined: he had an unlicensed girlfriend, of whom he was rather too fond, and an irrepressible desire to talk.’

‘So Leman had to be rubbed out, before he could do more damage?’

‘Yes,’ said Slider. ‘And if you look at the timing, it happened immediately after Barrington insisted on telling Cate that Leman wasn’t dead after all.’

‘Ah,’ said Atherton. ‘That’s why you wonder whether Barrington’s involved or not?’

‘Not only that. He’s been telling me to keep off Cate’s back right from the beginning – ending up with forbidding me to investigate the man at all. Look at it from Cate’s point of view – it would be extremely useful to have a Barrington on your team. Or perhaps in your power.’

Atherton shook his head. ‘I don’t know. As much dangerous as useful, I’d have thought’

‘You think so? But if I had been prevented from asking questions about Cate, we’d have had nothing to go on at all.’

‘Except his slip about Ronnie’s literacy,’ said Atherton.

‘Yes. Ronnie concealed that well from his hero.’

‘And you really think Cate popped into the house and wrote another note, just to convince you the first one was genuine?’

‘No, I’m sure he didn’t. Barrington might have recognised his writing, even if he disguised it.’

‘Then—?’

‘I think the security guard wrote both of them. I think it was the security guard who killed Slaughter – Cate was rather too well known in that house to slip in and out without the chance of someone recognising him. And he and Cate are each other’s alibis, if such things could be supposed to be needed.’

‘Yes,’ said Atherton. ‘I see. And I suppose the security guard killed Leman, too.’

Slider thought of the other Peter, blond, smouldering, devoted, jealous. He thought of the round, red bruise in Leman’s palm and the torn and swollen lobe of Davey’s right ear. He thought of the skull earring in Davey’s left ear, and Leman’s missing fingers – easier to chop them all off in one swift movement to retrieve the ring, than mess around taking just the one. And none of it, none of it would matter if they could not get the evidence against Cate. It was no use knowing things in your gut – you had to prove them.

And what did he have to go on? Cate had lied about how he first met Slaughter, lied about the note. There was his probable connection with Shax – would Peter Davey crack if leaned upon? Maybe – maybe not, if he had killed Leman. The ring and the earring. The connection with Lee Chang and with Chou Xiang Xu were both normally accountable, if a little coincidental. The most he had to accuse Cate of was being a homosexual, which wasn’t a crime, and of owning a house in which three girls had sex for money – and it would be impossible even to prove he knew about that unless Kathleen Sullivan spoke up.

And yet if he did nothing, and he was right – which he knew he was – and it all came out? Or if there were more deaths? Suppose Cate got nervous and started eliminating everyone who knew anything about him?

‘What do I do?’ he asked aloud. ‘There are all sorts of reasons why Barrington might be protecting Cate. They might have been lovers once. They might be brother masons, or belong to some other even tighter organisation. He might have been implicated with Cate in whatever happened at the Carlisle. He surely must at the very least
have wondered about that, but he never seems to have asked any awkward questions.’

Atherton was looking grave. You have to take all this to him – what you’ve told me, everything. It’s the proper procedure. And he’s asking where the hell you are anyway. You can’t never go in to work again.’

‘No,’ Slider agreed dully.

‘If he isn’t protecting Cate, he must at least follow up some of the questions. And if he is—’

‘Yes?’

Atherton bit his lip. ‘I’ll be standing there with you. If it looks iffy, we’ll take it higher up. As high as we have to.’ Slider only looked at him. ‘It’s the only way,’ he insisted. You have to do what’s right, Bill. To do anything else would make nonsense of your life. The only reason we’re coppers is that we’re different from
them’

‘Is it? I don’t know,’ Slider said. ‘I don’t think I know any more why I do it. It’s my job, that’s all. It’s just a job.’

Atherton was silent, watching him steadily, aware of many of the conflicts seething in that slightly bowed head. The bowed head concealed from him Slider’s other line of thought, which was that, even leaving aside the question of DC Field, Cate had proved himself ready to kill a man in the course of his master plan, and just as ready to kill two more to protect its outcome. And if Barrington, either innocently or with malice aforethought, told Cate that Slider was asking questions about him, what price Slider’s continued presence on this fretful globe?

‘You’re right, of course,’ he said. ‘There’s nothing else to be done.’ He raised his head with an unconscious sigh. ‘We’d better have something to eat first. Don’t want to face Mad Ivan on an empty stomach.’

Atherton seemed relieved at this return to normality. ‘D’you want to eat here? There’s just time before the kitchen closes. I’ll go and get a menu.’

‘Oh don’t bother. Just order me anything – whatever you’re having. As long as it’s not fish and chips.’

‘If this case has taught me one thing, it’s that chips are bad for your health,’ Atherton said, standing up.

AS SLIDER TURNED THE CORNER
of Old Bailey and Ludgate Hill he saw Joanna coming towards him from the direction of St Paul’s. She spotted him at exactly the same moment and stopped dead, and reading in that no rejection he walked on up to her. The last week of June had turned cold, perhaps in compensation for the extra-benign May, and a gritty wind swirled round their ankles while a dark grey sky threatened them overhead.

‘What are you doing here?’ he asked.

She gestured vaguely behind her. ‘Concert at the cathedral. We’ve just broken for lunch. What about you?’

‘Lunchtime too. There’s a case on in number five court that I was involved in,’ he said, gesturing towards the Central Criminal Court building. ‘I was supposed to be called this morning, but they’re making a pig’s ear of it. I suppose they’ll get round to me sooner or later.’

They were silent, staring at each other. ‘You’ve lost a lot of weight,’ Joanna said. His dark blue suit, which he always wore in court, was hanging noticeably loosely on him.

‘Yes,’ he said. He reached up and touched his head. ‘I’ve got a lot more grey hairs too.’

‘I can’t tell in this wind,’ she said. ‘It’s been pretty tough for you, I imagine. I’ve read one or two little bits in the papers.’