Blood Sinister (5 page)

She shook her head slowly. ‘No, I don’t know about that. There was this bloke I seen hanging about sometimes – Wolsey, Woolley, some name like that. She got him off this charge. He was s’pose to’ve blagged some building society, but he reckoned he was fitted up, an’ she found some evidence to get him off.’

‘Michael Wordley?’ Atherton suggested.

‘Yeah, Wordley, that’s him,’ Lorraine said.

Slider nodded, remembering the case. It had been a sore point at the time: Miss Agnew hadn’t hesitated to generalise from the particular. ‘But why would he want to harm her? He’d be grateful to her, wouldn’t he?’

‘You haven’t seen him. He’s a right tasty bastard, built like a brick khasi, face like a bagful o’ spanners. He’s a nutter, and you never know what them sort’ll do next. I tell you, I never liked having him come round here, I don’t care what Phoebe said. I mean, you’ve only got to say one wrong word, or look at ’em a bit funny, and you’ve had it. If anyone coulda done – what they done to her,’ she said with a shudder, ‘it was him.’

Ungrammatical, but emphatic. ‘When did you last see him round here?’

‘I can’t remember exactly. It would be – I dunno, maybe last week or the week before.’

‘Well, we’ll certainly look into him,’ Slider said. ‘Anyone else you can think of?’

‘No, but she had been worried lately,’ Lorraine said. ‘She never said what about, but for weeks now she’s been a bit—’

‘Preoccupied?’

‘Yeah. Yesterday was the first time I seen her smiling an’ happy for, like, a couple o’ months. Well, since Christmas, really. An’ then some bastard goes an’ does that to her! It’s not fair,’ she mourned. ‘I bet it was that nutter.’

‘One more thing,’ Slider said, ‘do you know who her next of kin was? Are her parents still alive?’

‘I dunno. She never said.’

‘Any brothers or sisters?’

‘She never mentioned any to me,’ Lorraine said slowly. ‘We didn’t talk about that sort o’ thing much. Maybe Peter’d know – him what lives down the area. He’s lived here longer’n me. He was always in there, chatting away. Real bunny merchant. Bored the pants off Phoebe, if you want my opinion, but she was too polite to say. Always too nice to everyone, that was her trouble.’

‘He doesn’t seem to be in at the moment. I expect he’s at work, isn’t he?’

‘I ’spec’ so. He’s a reporter, works for the
Ham and Ful
,’ said Lorraine.

The
Hammersmith and Fulham Chronicle
was a local paper, but with ambitions to be the next
Manchester Guardian
and go national. It took itself seriously, reported hard news, uncovered local council scandals, campaigned for the homeless and refugees, and hardly ever mentioned jumble sales or ‘amdram’ pantomimes.

‘So,’ said Atherton as they went downstairs again, ‘another newshound. Maybe that accounts for the rapid response.’

‘What, you think he was the reporter who rang the Commander? But how could he have known about it?’

‘Maybe he did it.’

‘Down, boy,’ said Slider.

Back in the Agnew flat, the body had been taken away. The room was strangely lifeless, all colour gone with her. The tattiness was now merely depressing rather than defiant.

‘There’s a mess of stuff to be sorted through,’ Atherton said gloomily. ‘Why did she live in a place like this, anyway? I’d have thought she earned plenty.’

‘You heard from L’raine what a saint she was. Maybe she gave it all away to charity.’

‘And leapt tall buildings in a single bound,’ Atherton said. ‘No, I see her as one of those pathetic pseudo-intellectuals who leech on dimwits to give themselves a sense of superiority. Better to reign in hell, etcetera, etcetera.’

‘I don’t know,’ Slider said. ‘With Candi up-atop and Peter the Bunny down under, I’d have thought Phoebe Agnew was the one being leeched on.’

‘Precisely my point,’ Atherton groused. ‘Why didn’t she stop slumming it and move somewhere else?’

‘Did you get a package of hostility through the post this morning? I thought you thought she was a brilliant writer.’

‘She was obviously a slob,’ Atherton said, watching the forensic team opening cupboards and drawers. The tidying had evidently been done student-style, by bundling up everything visible and stuffing it into hiding. ‘Why can’t we ever investigate someone with a minimalist lifestyle?’

Slider had left his side and was talking to Bob Lamont, who had come in person to lift the fingerprints. ‘What’s it look like?’

‘Dabs everywhere. A real mess. She wasn’t houseproud,’ said Lamont. ‘I’ve done all the usual places – door, light switch and so on.’

‘Do the cutlery, wineglasses and bottles in the kitchen, will you,’ Slider said. ‘Working on the assumption it was the killer she cooked for—’

‘You don’t want much, do you?’ Lamont complained.

‘Have you done the CD covers?’

‘Just about to.’

‘Good. Maybe he put music on to kill by. Oh,’ he added, ‘and what about the flush-handle on the loo – that’s one they often forget.’

‘Shall be done.’

Slider’s own troops were already starting to sort and bag papers from the areas that had been finished with. Atherton turned as he came back to him. ‘I suppose we’ve got to sort through all this lot to find the next of kin.’

‘No, you can ring one of the papers,’ Slider said. ‘They’re bound to have a morgue piece on her.’

‘Brilliant, boss.’

‘That’s me. Try the
Independent
first. Better not start off by suggesting to the
Grauniad
that they know more about the case than you do. And when you’ve done that, ring the
Ham and Ful
and find out where the downstairs tenant is.’

‘He’s probably somewhere giving himself an interview,’ Atherton said.

Just as Slider was leaving, Lamont came back to him. ‘I think we may have something,’ he said. ‘The cutlery and glasses and so on in the kitchen, and the coffee cups and brandy glasses over there,’ he nodded towards the unit, ‘have all been wiped clean on the outside.
But
the whisky glasses have both got lip and finger marks on them. Now, assuming one set belongs to the deceased—’

‘Nice,’ Slider said, brightening. ‘They always make one mistake.’

W
DC
Swilley burst into Slider’s office. ‘Boss?’

‘Don’t you believe in knocking?’ he said sternly.

‘No, only constructive criticism,’ she said.

‘Don’t you start. One smartarse in the firm’s enough,’ he warned. ‘I hope you’ve come to bring me a cup of tea?’

She shook her head. ‘Sorry. There’s a bloke here from the local paper.’

He frowned. ‘Why are you telling me? You know I don’t talk to the press.’

‘No, boss, but he says he’s got information about Phoebe Agnew. His name’s Peter Medmenham.’

‘That’s the man who lives in the basement of her house,’ Slider said. ‘Concentrate, Norma!’

‘Oh, yes. Sorry.’ She’d been distracted lately. Her longstanding engagement to the mysterious Tony was at last nearing fruition: at the Christmas party (which, typically, Tony did not attend) she had announced the date for the wedding.

The announcement had set the department seething, because nobody had ever met Tony, and the uncharitable had claimed he didn’t exist. Norma was tall, leggy, blonde and glamorous, so the idea that she was a saddo who had to invent a love-interest ought to have been ludicrous; but policewomen who reject the advances of their colleagues have to take what gets dished out. Those she had scorned most cruelly had labelled her a lesbian (and probably fantasised about her in studded leather wielding a whip). Now the same thickheads were saying she was getting married because she was in pod: spite and wounded pride took no account of logic, of course. But even Slider had to admit to a curiosity about what sort of magnificent
demigod Tony must be to have captured his firm’s own warrior princess.

‘So, d’you want to see him?’ Norma asked. ‘He’s downstairs, in interview room one.’

‘Eh?’ Slider said, startled.

‘This Meddlingham bloke.’

‘Oh! Yes, I suppose I’d better. Is he alone? He hasn’t got a photographer with him?’

She grinned. ‘You’re safe. He’s not even sporting a notepad.’

Peter Medmenham was not at all what Slider had expected. A reporter for a local paper he would have expected to be young and poor; and the name somehow suggested tall and handsome, in the manner of a model in a men’s knitwear catalogue. But what he found in the interview room was a short, plump person of indeterminate age, wearing cord trousers in a silvery-olive shade with a lovat-green lambswool sweater. A tweed overcoat, of the venerable wonderfulness that put it in the loved-family-retainer class, hung from his shoulders. His soft face sported a tan which, in the unforgiving fluorescent light, looked fake, and his pale blue eyes were rimmed with lashes so dark they must surely have been helped, especially as the sparse, carefully tended hair was white – or, to be absolutely frank, pale blue. As Slider paused in the doorway, Medmenham opened his eyes wide and made a little theatrical movement of his hands, first out and then to his chest.

‘Oh, don’t!’ he cried in a surprisingly deep, cigarette-husky voice. ‘I know! You’re looking at
this
!’ He touched his head. ‘It’s a
disaster
! Just
enhance
the white, I said – because when all you’ve got is a few poor little bits and pieces like mine, you’ve got to make the most of them – and, lo and behold, out I come, looking like the Blue Fairy in
Pinocchio
! Believe me, this is nothing to what it was like when she first did it. Kylie – that’s the girl’s name, don’t ask me why – said it would wash out, and it
is
doing but, my God! Serves me right for going to a unisex salon, I suppose.
That’s
a bad joke, and so was the salon.’

‘Mr Medmenham?’ Slider asked mildly.

‘Yes, and listen to me running on! It’s nerves, that’s all. Do you mind if I sit down? My poor feet are killing me. What I suffer with them is nobody’s business! Of course, these shoes
don’t help – but you can’t argue with vanity, can you?’ He had a refined accent, and behind the mascara, his eyes were alert and intelligent. ‘You’re Inspector Slider, are you?’

‘Yes, that’s right. And this is Detective Constable Swilley.’

Medmenham sat gracefully, slipping the coat off over the back of the chair in the same movement, and flashed a very white smile at Norma. ‘How d’you do? My goodness, you look much too glamorous to be a policewoman! Did you ever think of going on the boards, dear? You really should, you’ve got the legs for it. Mind you, your feet wouldn’t thank me. I used to dance, as well, though you wouldn’t think it to look at me now. No Fred Astaire, but I was a decent hoofer in my time. It’s all I can do to take three steps now. My trouble always was, my feet were too small for my weight. Put too much strain on them. If I were to show you, it would make you weep, I give you my word.’

Slider sat opposite him and tried to fix his attention. ‘I understand you’ve got something to tell me about Phoebe Agnew.’

‘Well, not exactly, but I thought you’d be sure to want to speak to me, as we were so close, so I came straight here as soon as I heard about it.’ The blue eyes wavered swimmingly. ‘I suppose it
is
true? There’s no mistake?’

‘I’m afraid not. How did you hear about it?’ Slider asked.

‘I picked up a
Standard
at the station, and there it was – just a paragraph at the bottom of the front page. It didn’t give her name, just said a well-known journalist had been found dead in a flat in West London, but, call me Mystic Meg, I just had an awful
premonition
about it. So I went straight to the nearest telephone and called the
Ham and Ful
news desk, and of course they knew all about it. One of our own had been first on the scene. My God, what a way to find out! I thought I was going to faint, right there in the railway station. I’m still not feeling quite myself.’

‘It must have been a shock,’ Slider said kindly. The unnatural-looking tan, he had discovered, was make-up after all. Medmenham might well be pale under it: he certainly had a look of strain.

‘It was,’ he said. ‘To tell you the truth, that’s another reason I came straight here. I didn’t want to go home. Is that silly of me?’ He gave a little nervous laugh.

‘Understandable,’ Slider said.

‘I’m not sure if I’ll ever want to go back there again. She – she isn’t
still there
, is she?’

‘No. The body’s been removed.’

‘The body! Oh dear!’ His lips began to tremble and his face threatened to collapse, but he said, ‘No, I must stay calm. Can’t blub in front of the police.’ He drew out a handkerchief from his trouser pocket and carefully applied it to his eyes and lips. ‘And I want to
help
,’ he added, emerging. ‘Poor, darling Phoebe! Who could have done such a thing?’

‘Your editor said you weren’t at work today,’ Slider said.

‘My editor? You mean Martin? He doesn’t edit
me
, love,’ Medmenham said with sudden vigour. ‘Barely literate, like most of the staff, but then that’s the progressive education system for you. Gender awareness and finger-painting, oh yes, but reading and writing –
oubliez le
! And as for grammar—’