Dear Departed (3 page)

‘What it is to be a star,’ said Atherton.

‘Me or him?’ Slider asked suspiciously.

‘Me, of course,’ said Atherton. He was elegantly suited, as always, and his straight fair hair, which he wore cut short these days, had just the subtlest hint of a fashionable spikiness about it, making him look even more dangerous to women. That sort of subtlety you had to pay upwards of forty quid for. Slider, who had used the same back-street barber for twenty years and now paid a princely nine quid a go, felt shabby and rumpled beside him. With his height and slimness Atherton sometimes looked more like a male model than a policeman. He was also, however, looking distinctly underslept about the eyes.

‘On the tiles again last night?’ Slider enquired. ‘Let me see, it was that new PC, wasn’t it? Collins?’

‘Yvonne. She’s new to the area and doesn’t know anybody,’ Atherton said, with dignity. ‘I was just making friends.’

‘A wild night of friend-making really takes it out of you,’ Slider said.

‘Crabby this morning,’ Atherton observed. ‘Bad luck about your day off. McLaren’s gone in search of coffee and bacon sarnies,’
he added coaxingly.

‘I had breakfast,’ Slider said. ‘I still don’t know what I’m doing here, if Porson’s in charge.’

‘Looks as though you’re about to find out,’ said Atherton, gesturing with his head.

Slider turned and caught Detective Superintendent Fred ‘The Syrup’ Porson’s eye on him across the little groups of coppers and witnesses. Porson was tall and bony and reared above the mass of humanity like a dolmen, his knobbly slap gleaming in the sun. It was still a shock to Slider to see old Syrup’s bald pate. He had earned his sobriquet through years of wearing a
deeply unconvincing wig, but he had abandoned it the day his wife died. Slider was forced to the unlikely conclusion that it was Betty Porson (who had been quite an elegant little person) who had encouraged the sporting of the rug. The nickname had been in existence too long to die; now it had to be applied ironically.

Slider liked Porson. He was a good policeman and a loyal senior, and if he used language like a man in boxing gloves trying to thread a needle, well, it was a small price to pay not to be commanded by a twenty-something career kangaroo with a degree in Applied Pillockry.

The Syrup was signalling something with his eyebrows. Porson’s eyebrows were considerable growths. They could have declared UDI from the rest of his face and become a republic. Slider obeyed the summons.

‘Sorry about your day off,’ Porson said briefly. ‘I’ve got things initialated for you, but you’ll have to take over from here. I’ve got a Forward Strategy Planning Meeting at Hammersmith.’ His tone revealed what he thought of strategic planning meetings. These days, holding meetings seemed to be all the senior ranks did – hence, perhaps, old Syrup’s eagerness to sniff the gunpowder this morning. ‘Gallon was the first uniform on the spot – he’ll fill you in on the commensurate part. I’ve got people taking statements from everyone who was still here when we got here, and SOCO’s just gone in. All right?’

‘Yes, sir,’ Slider said. ‘But—’

Porson raised a large, knuckly hand in anticipation of Slider’s objection. ‘A word in your shell-like,’ he said, turning aside. Slider turned with him, and Porson resumed, in a lower voice: ‘Look here, this might be the Park Killer or it might not. It could be, from the look of appearances, but I want it either way. The SCG’s had to send most of its personal to help out the Anti-terrorist Squad, so Peter Judson’s down to two men and a performing dog, and they’re up to their navels.’ The Serious Crime Group had first refusal of all murders. ‘So it’ll probably be left with us, at least for the present time being. If we can clear this one, it’s going to do us a lot of
bon.
Definite flower in our caps.’

Slider wasn’t sure he wanted anything in his cap. ‘If it is a serial, there’s Ealing to consider,’ he said.

Porson looked triumphant. ‘That’s the beauty of it. They’ve not managed to get anywhere with it. We get the gen from them, and
we
clear it, see? Who’s a pretty boy
then?’
Something of Slider’s inner scepticism must have showed, because Porson lowered his voice even more, and practically climbed into his ear. ‘Look here,’ he said, ‘I’m not trying to blow sunshine up your skirt. The bottom end is that I’m being considered for promotion. I’ve not got long to go. If I can retire a rank higher it makes a big difference to my pension.’ His faded, red-rimmed eyes met Slider’s without flinching. ‘I’ve given my life to the Job. I think I deserve it.’ Slider thought so too, but it wasn’t his place to say so. ‘But you know as well as I do what flavour goes down with the upper escalons these days,’
Porson went on. ‘We’re not young and sexy. Dinosaurs, they call us, coppers like you and me. But a big-profile clear-up, that’s just an incontroversial fact. They can’t ignore that.’

Slider noted that Porson didn’t say, ‘Do this for me and I’ll see you all right.’ He had always been loyal to his troops and simply assumed that they knew it. Slider admired him for it. So he waved goodbye to his time off and did not sigh. ‘I’ll do my best, sir,’ he said.

‘I know you will, laddie. I know you will.’ Porson was so moved he came within an inch of clapping Slider on the shoulder, changed the gesture at the last moment, tried to scratch his nonexistent wig, and ended up rubbing his nose vigorously, clearing his throat with a percussive violence that would have stunned a starling at ten paces.

Slider decided to take advantage of the emotional moment. ‘Any chance you can get me a replacement for Anderson, sir?’ he asked. DC Anderson of Slider’s team had been snatched by the National Crime Squad on a long-term secondment, leaving him a warm body short.

‘I’ll see what I can do,’ Porson said, ‘but don’t hold your horses. You know what the situation is
vis-à-vis
recruitment.’

Slider returned to Atherton. All right,’ he said, ‘tell me about it. Where’s the
corpus,
then?’

‘In the bushes,’ said Atherton.

On the Paddenswick Road side, the park was bounded by a low wall topped with spiked iron railings, the whole combination about nine feet high. An iron gate let on to a wide concreted
path, which ran straight for twenty feet and then branched to give north – south and east – west walks, plus a curving circumference route round the northern end of the park that was popular with runners. The whole park was pleasantly landscaped, mostly grassy with a few large trees and one or two formal flower-beds beside the paths, filled now with the tidy summer bedders beloved of municipal gardeners – bright red geraniums, multicoloured pansies, edgings of blue and white lobelia and alyssum.

It was all open space, not at all murderer territory, except for a stretch of vigorous shrubbery of rhododendrons, spotted laurels, winter viburnum and other such serviceable bushes, plus a few spindly trees of the birch and rowan sort. The shrubbery ran north to south, bordered on the east by the railings and on the west by the north – south path, which ran down to the gate opposite the tube station. And here, it seemed, among the sooty leaves, the murderer had lurked, and attacked.

PC Gallon, as promised, filled Slider in.

‘It was a bloke walking his dog that found the body, sir, just after eight o’clock. A Mr Chapman, first name Michael, lives in Atwood Road?’ Gallon was young enough to have the routine Estuary Query at the end of his sentences, but in this case he wanted to know if Slider knew where that was. Slider nodded.

‘Well, he had his dog on one of those leads that reels out, and it went into the bushes there. He didn’t notice till the dog starts barking and making a hell of a fuss. So he tries to reel it in, but it won’t come, and he reckons the lead’s caught up on the bushes or something, so he goes in after it, and there she is.’

‘Was it him who phoned Emergency?’

‘No, sir. Chapman comes out of the bushes and stops the first person he sees, bloke called David Hatherley who’s walking through on his way to work, and he calls 999 on his mobile. Call was logged at eight twelve.’

‘All right. Let’s have a look,’ Slider said.

Here, in this short stretch of path inside the gate and before the junction, the bushes grew close together, presenting an unbroken green wall of foliage. ‘Here’s where Chapman went in,’ said Atherton. And presumably where the killer dragged the victim in.’

There were scuffmarks in the chipped bark mulch that had been spread under the shrubs to keep the weeds down. Some bark had spilled over onto the path, and there were two deep parallel grooves disappearing like tram lines into the shrubbery.

‘You’d have thought there’d have been more damage to the bushes,’ Slider complained. ‘There’s a few leaves on the ground, but no broken twigs or branches.’

‘I suppose they just bent and whipped back,’ Atherton said. ‘There’s better access for us round the other side. That’s the way SOCO’s gone in.’

They walked the few yards to the junction and turned left down the north – south path. On this side of the shrubbery the growth was less vigorous, and about twenty feet along there was a good two- to three-foot gap between two of the bushes. The crime-scene manager, Bob Bailey, met them there. He was a tall, lean man with wiry fair hair and a stiff moustache that Slider always thought must be hell on his wife. The scene-of-crime officers were civilians who worked out of headquarters at Hammersmith. In the course of things Slider and Bailey had a lot of contact and got on pretty well.

‘The doc’s been and gone, sir,’ Bailey greeted him. ‘Pronounced at eight twenty-nine.’

‘Dr Prawalha? That was nippy.’

‘Well, he only lives round the corner,’ Bailey explained. ‘We’ve nearly finished with the photographs and the measuring. Then you can come in and have a look.’

The modern trend was towards excluding even the senior investigating officer from the crime scene, and they were working on a 3D laser video camera that would create a digital version of the scene you could walk through on computer screen without ever getting near the real thing. But Slider had to see for himself. It was not self-glorification or thrill-seeking, it was just the way he was. There was so much he could glean from his own senses that he knew would not be the same in virtual reality. Bailey knew his preference, and since Slider was both polite and careful, he tolerated it. Not that he could do anything else, given that Slider seriously outranked him, but there was good grace and bad grace.

‘There won’t be much to be got from this bark,’ Slider observed. ‘No footmarks.’

‘No, sir. And blood patterns will be hard to spot. It’s either brown bark or dark green leaves. And everyone and his dog could have been in here. I hate outdoor scenes.’

‘At least it’s not raining,’ Slider said, to comfort him. ‘Well, let me know when I can come in. I’ll go and talk to the witness.’

Michael Chapman didn’t have much to add to the story as told by Gallon. His dog, a small, jolly-looking terrier, was lying down on the path now, chin on paws, thoroughly bored. Chapman was obviously still upset. He was in his late fifties, Slider guessed, well dressed and neatly coiffed, with a worn look to his face that seemed to predate the present shock. Early and reluctant retiree, perhaps?

‘Yes, I do walk Buster here most mornings,’ he said, in answer to Slider’s question. ‘I take him out later for two or three longer walks, but I generally do the first turn here. I only live just down the road, you see, so it’s convenient.’

‘So, as a regular park user, have you seen this girl before?’

‘I’m not sure,’ he said reluctantly. ‘I might have. I can’t really say. There are so many people exercising here in the mornings, jogging and so on. I don’t really notice them. Anyway, I didn’t really get much of a look at her in there,’ he said, with a jerk of his head towards the bushes. ‘Not to see her face.’ A thought came to him, and his eyes widened in appeal. ‘You won’t make me go and look again?’

‘No, sir,’ Slider said reassuringly. ‘You went in just there, I understand?’

‘Yes, that’s right. Between those two laurels.’

‘Did you notice those marks in the ground?’

‘Well, no. I didn’t really notice anything, except that Buster was barking his head off and wouldn’t come back.’

‘Did you touch the body at all? To see if she was still alive?’

‘No!’ he said vehemently; and then looked worried. ‘Should I have? As soon as I saw her I was sure she must be dead. I didn’t want to go any nearer. I just wanted to get Buster out.’

‘Did Buster touch the body?’

‘Not to my knowledge. When I got in there he was jumping and barking but not actually touching her. She was lying on her back and her eyes were open and there was all that – all that blood – on her – on her T-shirt.’ He swallowed hard, screwing up his eyes as if to force the vision away. ‘I dragged Buster out
the same way we went in, and then I saw that gentleman talking on his mobile phone and asked him to call the police.’

The phone owner, David Hatherley, was a different kettle of fish from the shocked and patient Chapman. He was a tall, vigorous, expensively suited young Turk, annoyed at being kept from his turkery by bumbling officialdom. He turned on Slider as he approached, scanned him for authority, and demanded hotly, ‘Look here, how much longer am I going to be kept hanging around? Some of us have work to do, you know.’

‘Yes, I do know, sir. We are doing our work at the moment,’ Slider said.

The nostrils flared with exasperation. ‘Well, I can’t help you. I know nothing about it. I was just walking past when that idiot tried to grab my phone, and then started babbling about dead bodies. I had to interrupt a very important business call to dial 999.’

‘It was very public-spirited of you, sir,’ Slider said soothingly.

Hatherley seemed to suspect irony and snorted. ‘So can I go now? Your man’s taken down every damned detail from me, address, telephone, right down to my shoe size. You don’t seem to realise, every minute I stand here I’m losing money.’

Slider had used those minutes to look over Hatherley’s clothes, his face and hands, his manner. There was nothing there for them. ‘Yes, you can go. Thank you very much for your help, Mr Hatherley. We might be contacting you again.’