‘Right,’ Atherton said. ‘You can’t keep ’em down on the farm after they’ve seen Paree. What would you have done?’ he asked Connolly.
‘Pretend to go along with it and run mad behind their backs,’ Connolly answered. ‘If they want to carry on like Ignatius Loyola, what can they expect?’
‘Tyrants make liars,’ Atherton said.
‘Well, that’s one way to look at it,’ Slider said, from the point of view of a father. ‘But was that what Zellah was doing?’
‘She was out on the Scrubs late at night when she should have been somewhere else,’ Connolly pointed out.
‘We know she was rebelling,’ Atherton said, ‘because of what Freddie Cameron said about her having had a lot of sex. And I must say she must have had considerable moxie to defy her dad like that. I wouldn’t like to try it.’
‘Moxie?’ Slider queried vaguely, out of a train of thought.
‘Balls. Spunk. Chutzpah.’
‘I know what it means. I just don’t know why you’re using it.’
‘I’m a Red Sox fan.’
‘You are not.’ Slider shook his head. ‘Try to be duller,’ he advised.
‘I can’t help it. I spent my formative years at the pictures.’
Connolly suppressed a grin. This was why she wanted to get into the CID. They were all pure mad in the Department. ‘Sir,’ she said to Slider, ‘I’ve been thinking about the clothes she was wearing.’
‘Yes, I’ve been wondering about that too,’ Slider said. ‘I wouldn’t have thought her parents – her father, anyway – would have let her go out showing that much flesh.’
‘No, sir. That’s what I thought. And I had a good oul’ look in her wardrobe while I was in her bedroom, and there’s nothing else like that in there. It’s all Sunday School stuff, skirts and ganzies your mammy would buy you. I’m wondering if she borrowed those clothes from her friend.’
‘Sophy Whatsit? It’s a thought. And if she did, then Sophy must have been in on the whole thing,’ Slider said. ‘Which would mean she’d know who it was Zellah was seeing that night.’
‘It’s obvious the Sophy thing was a front,’ Atherton said. ‘Either for some kind of group outing to a place the Wildings wouldn’t approve of, or for Zellah to go out with a person ditto ditto.’
‘That Mike Carmichael sounds the lad,’ Connolly said. ‘The Woodley South’s a total kip. Drugs, stolen cars, smuggled fags and booze. Unemployment about ninety-eight per cent. What’s a skanger from a place like that doing, hanging around the likes of Zellah Wilding?’
‘Yes,’ said Slider. ‘I do wonder what the connection with the smart girls is. How did he know Sophy Whatsit’s brother and his friends?’
‘Oh, I think we can all guess that,’ Atherton said wryly. ‘What do larging-it youngsters do with their money these days?’
‘We can all guess,’ Slider said, ‘but I’d prefer to know.’
‘I take it an early interview with biker boy is a priority,’ Atherton said. ‘The hood from the ’hood.’
‘First of all,’ Slider went on, ‘we need to speak to this Sophy girl. She may be the one person who knows where Zellah was going and with whom.’
‘Do you want me to do it?’ Atherton said.
‘No, I’ll go myself,’ Slider said, stretching his shoulders. ‘I need to move. I’ll take Hart with me. They’ll think she’s cool.’
‘I’m cool,’ Atherton protested. Connolly made a snorting noise, and he turned on her sharply to find her face rigidly controlled. ‘What?’
‘Nothing, sir,’ she said.
‘I think PC Connolly thinks you’re more hip than cool,’ Slider explained kindly. ‘Anyway, you two have got your notes to write up. Get the photograph copied and circulated. Oh, and you’d better arrange for the Wildings to identify the body. Get them to come in, and take their statements down, such as they are.’
‘We can send someone there for that,’ Atherton said.
‘It’ll do them good to get out of the house,’ Slider said, and Connolly gave him a pleased look for having thought of it. ‘What did you think of the father?’
‘Obsessive,’ Atherton said. ‘Transferred all his love to his little princess when he realized he’d married a pudding.’
‘Right,’ said Slider. ‘On the principle that it’s always the person nearest what dunnit, get him to write down where he was and what he was doing.’
‘That poor man?’ Connolly protested. ‘He was heartbroken!’
‘For elimination purposes,’ Slider said. ‘Always bread and butter first, before you can have any cake.’
Mad as bicycles, Connolly thought admiringly.
FOUR
Bedlam Sans Mercy
‘So, what’s the griff with this one, guv?’ Hart asked, deeply gratified to have been chosen to accompany the boss. She glanced sideways at his profile as he drove. He still gave her a flutter, though she accepted he was off limits now. She liked older men, and there was just something about him . . . Sexy, she thought with an inward, wistful sigh. Definitely a hottie.
‘That’s what we’re going to find out,’ he said.
‘No, but I mean did she go putting herself about to get one over her dad, and get picked up by a low-life, raped and murdered?’
‘She wasn’t raped.’
‘Oh, yeah, I was forgetting.’ She frowned. ‘Well, how does that work, then?’
‘It complicates things,’ Slider admitted.
‘Why strangle the cow when you’ve drunk the milk?’
‘What a dainty turn of phrase you have. Anyway, it’s useless to speculate with so few facts.’
‘Yeah, but it passes the time.’ He didn’t look at her, but she saw his lips twitch in response.
The house was big, handsome, well proportioned; probably built in the 1820s, Slider thought, of solid London stock and slate, with the tall sash windows beloved of people who had enough servants to clean them. There were wide steps up to the front door over a semi-basement, and what had been a large front garden was now mostly gravelled parking, but with a shrubbery softening the edges, and a couple of lofty ancient trees for beauty. Parked on the gravel were a black sports-model Golf, a red Mazda X5 and a big Mercedes station wagon.
‘Bet the Golf’s the birthday present,’ Hart said as they pulled in alongside. ‘Lucky girl.’ She climbed out and looked up at the house. ‘Well, obviously they’ve got money, a house this big in this part of the world.’
Slider got out at the other side and pointed upwards. ‘That’s the other side of the coin,’ he said, as a 747 roared slowly over on its way to Heathrow. ‘All these lovely houses are under the flight path.’
Hart shrugged. ‘Wouldn’t bother me. I grew up with two bruvvers who loved reggae. A jumbo’s a breeze compared to that.’
They walked up the steps. There was the sound of slamming music from somewhere inside. Slider rang the bell, waited a moment, and rang it again. A dog’s barking came closer, retreated, advanced again until it was just behind the door. Slider rang again, then knocked for good measure, and the dog exploded with urgency.
At last there was movement inside, and the door was opened by a girl with wet eyelashes and a towel wrapped in a turban round her head. Beside her a golden retriever was woofing madly. Behind her an elderly mongrel of largely Labrador descent was scenting the air and wagging its tail, and further back still a grey whippet and a black toy poodle lurked, poised for flight. The music sounded louder now, but was still distant, upstairs somewhere.
‘I’m sorry, did you ring more than once?’ she said with the instant, confiding friendliness that Slider thought her generation’s nicest trait. ‘I was washing my hair, I couldn’t hear for the water.’