Butcher’s dog, Slider thought. Yes, that was apt. I am not the Butcher but the Butcher’s dog. ‘Interesting,’ he said.
She cocked a sympathetic eye towards him. ‘He’s got no record, guv. So we can’t check the murderer’s hand-print against his.’
‘It’s only what I expected,’ Slider said, and lapsed into silence.
At last she said, hopefully, ‘Is there anything else you want me to do, guv?’
‘No, thanks. Not just now,’ Slider said absently.
It wasn’t the answer she had wanted, but there was nothing for it but to shrug, turn away, and say, ‘Goodnight, then.’
Slider didn’t even hear her. Deep in the notes, he was unaware of his surroundings until, looking up, he found Atherton leaning on his door frame with an empty CID room behind him.
‘Not gone home? Did you want something?’
‘I know you’re about to do something,’ Atherton said, ‘and, at the risk of going all Rin Tin Tin about it, my place is at your side.’
Slider looked at him thoughtfully for a long moment. ‘There is something you can do.’
‘Hah!’ said Atherton. ‘I knew it. You’re going solo again, and after Mr Porson’s forbidden you!’
‘No, in fact Mr Porson said I can tie up loose ends. As long as I don’t frighten the horses.’
‘Loose ends? Horses? No still waters or barn doors in this cliché-fest?’
‘It cuts us out, you see,’ Slider said. ‘The big operation. Unless the Dutch courier sings about this end of the chain, and they’re not likely to press him on it when they want to wind it up the other way. And we can’t do anything this end, because we don’t know who the new courier is, or where he’s going out from. They won’t use Windhover again.’
‘No,’ said Atherton. ‘Too many eyes watching, now Rogers is a celebrity for being murdered.’
‘New courier, new boat, new harbour.’
‘Needle in haystack.’
‘And I don’t just want the courier. I want the brains behind it.’
‘So – what, then?’
‘We have to get the whole story, everything, from the beginning. From someone who knows. Someone with the moral courage to do the right thing.’
It didn’t take Atherton more than a few seconds to work it out. ‘You’re going to see Amanda Sturgess? You think she has moral courage? Or do you think she’s the brains behind it?’
‘We’ll see.’
‘I hope we will. And what do you want me to do? Come with you?’
‘No, I think she’ll talk better one to one. I want you to get Frith out of the way.’
‘I’m not going to befriend that ass’s arse.’
‘You can make it official. Find out how much he really knew about the whole business. That’s something that’s been exercising me. I think he was ignorant of it all, but I’d like to be sure.’
Atherton considered. ‘But you’ll give the secret signal if you get into trouble, so I can rush to the rescue?’
Slider raised an eyebrow. ‘What am I, a weakling? She may be tall, but I could take her any time I wanted.’
Atherton shuddered. ‘Choose another simile.’
‘Not that sort of taking.’
‘Even the thought of it . . .’
Amanda Sturgess looked terrible. She had aged ten years in a week. She was grey-faced and drawn and her eyes were haunted. Slider felt an inward quiver of satisfaction that he was on the right track. He had waited across the road in his car until he saw Frith stamp out, looking annoyed, to keep his enforced tryst with Atherton, then made his way through the windy darkness to the lit house. He rang, and she answered the door. The sight of him brought a sort of dread to her expression.
‘I’d like to talk to you,’ Slider said, quite gently.
She rallied. ‘I have nothing to say to you,’ she said, with an attempt at the old, cold arrogance. It almost worked.
‘You will talk to me,’ he said. ‘Either here or down at the station.’
‘You threatened me once before,’ she said, nostrils quivering. ‘You need to know that I am not a woman to be bullied.’
‘Then, in God’s name, how did you get mixed up with all this?’ he cried. Her face flinched as though he had slapped her. ‘They killed your husband!’
‘My ex-husband!’
‘And his girlfriend – an innocent woman. She had nothing to do with it, but they killed her anyway.’
‘Why should I care about her? She was a slut. She got what she deserved.’
‘You don’t think that,’ he said, looking at her seriously. She met his eyes, but her own grew nervous again, ‘And two others at least – the secretary and the nurse from Harley Street. How many more have to die?’
‘I don’t care,’ she cried weakly. ‘Go away and leave me alone!’ She tried to close the door, but he had his hand on it.
‘In your own self-interest, then,’ he said. ‘Don’t you think they know you are now the one weak link? How long before they come after you?’ She stared at him, holding on. Perhaps she even thought death would be a relief? No, she didn’t really believe she was in danger. But he had another lever. ‘What do you think will happen to your agency?’
That hit home. ‘You can’t touch that! You wouldn’t! We do good work. It’s important work.’
He inched closer and lowered his voice so that she had to stay near to listen. ‘Financed by criminal money? We’ll take it apart, close it down. The publicity will obliterate its reputation and your work.’
‘Not my agency! You wouldn’t!’
‘I will. Unless—’ Now she was listening. ‘If you help us, I might be able to keep the agency out of it. You could find a new way of financing it, keep it going. I understand you’re an expert fund-raiser. If, that is, you are free to fund-raise.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘If I can arrange an amnesty for you in exchange for your information.’
‘Amnesty?’ Pale as she was, she whitened at the implication.
‘You are right in the middle of this,’ he said with soft implacability. ‘You are implicated right up to the hilt. You will be arrested, charged with the rest of them. The illegal importation of human organs. Plus at least two murders.’
‘I didn’t kill anyone!’
‘That’s not the way the law sees it. You don’t have to pull the trigger to be guilty. You knew all about it and you didn’t try to stop it. That makes you guilty.’
Now she looked appalled. ‘I can’t,’ she whispered. ‘I can’t go to court. I can’t be on trial. It would kill my parents.’
‘Then you must help me,’ he said simply. ‘Talk to me, tell me everything. But it has to be now. This is your only chance. After this, it will be out of my hands.’ He watched her for a moment, and then started to turn away with a shrug.
‘No, wait!’ She seemed to crumple. ‘Oh God, how did it come to this?’ She swayed, and Slider thought he might have to grab her. But she was made of sterner stuff. She straightened herself, stepped back, and said, with a ghost of the old hostility, ‘You’d better come in.’
EIGHTEEN
Organ Involuntary
He followed her over the threshold and closed the door behind him. There were lights on all through the ground floor, and it seemed they must have been having supper when Atherton rang, because the dining table was only partly cleared and there was a smell of food fading away in the kitchen. She walked straight to a cupboard in the corner of the sitting-room and took out a bottle and two glasses.