‘Oh? Well, I’d better see her. She might have an insight to share. What’s she like?’
‘Posh. I doubt she’s ever seen the inside of a polis station before. She spoke to Harris ve-ry slo-owly to be sure the puir heathen understood what she was saying.’
‘We’d better not slap her in an interview room, then,’ Slider said. ‘Can you get someone to wheel her up here?’
‘My thought exactly. She’s the sort that’d tell on ye in a minute. Years of working with children warps your mind. It’s a bad business, this, Bill,’ he went on, suddenly serious. ‘With six girls of my own, I hate it like fire. Any leads yet?’
‘Not really. But we’ve got everyone out asking questions, and someone will have seen something. They always do.’
‘Aye. Well,’ he sighed, ‘not to be suggesting anything, but I don’t know if you knew that Ronnie Oates is back in circulation.’
‘The Acton Strangler?’ Slider said, and then distracted himself. ‘I can’t believe we’ve got a serial killer called Oates.’
‘God has a strange sense of humour,’ Nicholls acknowledged. ‘But I’d remind ye that he’s never killed anyone.’
‘I beg his pardon,’ Slider said. Oates had indecently assaulted five women, and although the assaults themselves had been fairly minor, he had a proclivity for choking his sexual partners during the act, which had eventually got him into trouble when one of them complained. It had also finally brought him to the notice of the press, who could not resist giving him the sobriquet. ‘What did he get last time?’
‘Four years. He was a good boy and got out after eighteen months. That was a couple of months ago, and Arthur told me when we swapped over that he’s been seen around East Acton again, where his mother lives.’
‘Arthur’ was Paxman, the sergeant on the night relief.
‘How come he always knows everything?’ Slider complained.
‘People tell him things. He’s like the river that king in the legend stuck his head in, to whisper his secret. He flows.’ Nicholls demonstrated a beautiful smoothness with one hand. ‘Men may come and men may go but he goes on for ever.’
‘Well, thanks for telling me, anyway,’ Slider said. ‘Oates liked to use the women’s own tights, didn’t he?’
‘That’s why I thought you ought to know right away,’ said Nicholls. ‘The trouble with people like him is that they escalate. The sin loses its edge so they have to sin a bit harder to get the same thrill. And he’s just stupid enough to want to earn his sobriquet. He may have finally crossed the line, Bill.’
‘Yes,’ said Slider. It was a dismal prospect.
‘I’ll wheel up your woman,’ Nutty said. He got to the door and turned back to say, ‘His ma used to tie him up when he was bad, you know – Oates. When he was a wean. Used to tie him to the banisters by the neck so he wouldn’t struggle. Used to use a pair of her old tights.’ He shook his head. ‘The things we do to our children.’
The woman moved so briskly across the room that Slider only just had time to get to his feet before she thrust her hand out to be shaken.
‘Elizabeth Finch-Dutton, head teacher of St Margaret’s,’ she said crisply. ‘Zellah Wilding’s head teacher. They tell me you are the officer in charge.’
He’d forgotten they didn’t call themselves masters and mistresses any more. ‘Detective Inspector Slider,’ he said. Despite the warm day, her hand was cold and dry, and the grip was hard and brief, like a politician’s, and quickly withdrawn.
‘I heard the dreadful news this morning, on the radio. I’m so shocked I can hardly believe it. Is it true the poor child was murdered?’
‘I’m afraid so.’
‘But – how? I mean, what—?’
‘I’m afraid I can’t go into any of the details,’ Slider said.
She pulled herself together. ‘Of course. I understand. It’s just so incomprehensible. In the absence of information the imagination tends to run wild.’
Let it run, said Slider’s sturdy silence.
‘I thought I’d better come here and see if there was anything I can do,’ she said meekly. ‘It’s good of you to see me, when you must be so busy. But if I can help in any way, I will gladly rally any forces at my command to find out who did this dreadful thing.’
Slider gestured to her to sit. She was tall and thin, in her late fifties probably, with cropped grey hair, large glasses and a professional smile – a ritual baring of teeth. It seemed to be coming and going rather randomly, as if she kept finding herself doing it automatically and then realizing it wasn’t appropriate to the occasion. She was not as much in control of herself as she wanted to appear, and Slider liked her the better for it.
‘Any background information you can give me?’ he suggested. ‘What was your impression of Zellah?’
‘She was one of our stars. A very able girl. She was a prefect, you know, and she was under consideration for Head Girl next year. Exemplary behaviour and academic prowess. Such a good example to the lower forms. We all thought a great deal of her.’ Her accent was crisp and her enunciation perfect, and she spoke with an emphasis carefully placed on one word in each phrase – a learned trick of rhetoric, presumably, but which made her sound authoritative. What she said would be the last word on any subject. ‘It’s so terrible to think of all that potential cut short in this senseless manner. She was the sort of girl we all long for but rarely get through our hands: a girl with a real academic intellect. Her A levels were sciences, you know.’
‘I expect that’s unusual.’
‘More so every year. One feels so for the Wildings, because they encouraged her just as they should, and that’s even more rare. Mr Wilding,’ the smile flashed out briefly, like a lighthouse beam passing, ‘is quite one of our treasures. He’s on the Board of Governors; he involves himself in all our projects, always willing to help in the most practical way. I believe he does a great deal of charity work outside as well, and sits on various committees – residents’ association, parish council, Neighbourhood Watch and so on. He’s a pillar of society.’ She used the phrase as if it were placed in inverted commas: a cliché, you were to understand, but one that could not be bettered. ‘And a most conscientious communicant. We expect all our parents to attend service regularly, but one can’t command the spirit in which they do it. But Mr Wilding is a true Christian in the best sense. And he recognised Zellah’s abilities and was most anxious that she should study serious subjects and do well at them. Most of our girls,’ she said with a sad shake of the head, ‘want to go into media studies, fashion, journalism, the soft options, and their parents encourage them. They want them to make easy money and good marriages, nothing more, as if the height of their ambition is to see their daughters emulate Victoria Beckham. Thirty years on from so-called Liberation, and women’s minds are still not valued in the least! I sometimes think it’s impossible to educate adolescent girls at all. And then someone like Zellah comes along and restores one’s faith in the species.’
It seemed a lot to be resting on one girl’s shoulders, Slider thought. ‘So you would say she was a serious-minded girl. Was she a . . . a good girl, for want of a better phrase?’
‘I understand you. And yes, she was a good girl. That was why we made her a prefect. But she wasn’t, shall we say, dour and humourless. She had great charm and vivacity. And her intellect was very well rounded. We wish our girls to be balanced, and Zellah’s science subjects had their counterpoint in the arts. She took part in many of the after-school activities. She was a member of the choir, the drama society – she took a leading part in our play at the end of the spring term. Her father helped make the scenery, by the way. I believe she did ballet, though of course that was outside the school. And she had quite a talent for art. Quite a talent. Our art master, Mr Markov, thought the world of her.’