‘Excuse me, sorry to disturb you, but have you—?’ Hart began politely, but she looked up at them unsmilingly, while her fingers never ceased to knit.
‘Making fools of yerselves,’ she said, in the strange accent of the fair people, which was like East End London mixed with Essex, but with a different, more exotic tinge to it, which made them seem slightly foreign, like the tinge of sallowness to their skins.
‘Just doing our jobs. A young girl was killed,’ Hart reminded her.
‘Oh, I seen her. She passed by here.’ The fingers reached the end of a row and switched the knitting over all on their own. They weren’t so much like sausages now, Atherton thought, as like plump bald feral animals munching at something they had hunted down. ‘She went off that way.’ She nodded towards the open space.
‘Was she on her own?’
‘She had a row with him, didn’t she? Tall chap. Brown hair. Older than her. Bit like you.’ She nodded towards Atherton. ‘She was angry. He was trying to pretend he didn’t care, but he was angry all the same. Harsh words was exchanged, then she went off. Running, she was. Took her shoes off so’s to run. He went back that way.’ She jerked her head towards the fair. ‘Didn’t see me, either of ’em. I was looking out me winder, having a last smoke.’
‘Last smoke? What time was this?’
‘Midnight, near enough. I don’t stay up till we close, not these days. Near two o’clock, time my son comes to bed. But we was still open. Be about midnight, give or take.’
That was much better. Atherton said, ‘Did you see him go after her later?’
‘Nah. I watched till she stopped running, see if she’d come back, but she went trudging on, away over the common. I’d finished me smoke so I went to bed. Never saw neither of ’em again. Now I told you all.’ Her face grew a fraction sterner. ‘So don’t you come saying it was one of our chaps what done it. Don’t you try that. She was just a gayjo tart, nothing to do with us.’
‘We never thought it was,’ Hart said. ‘Thanks, ma.’
The woman turned her face away, staring out at the green grass under the smudgy August sky, her fingers chumbling away at their woolly carcase. ‘What for? I never told you nothing.’
Slider picked up the phone and said, ‘Slider,’ but was answered only by breathing. ‘Hello?’ he said impatiently.
His father’s warm, burring tones came back to him. ‘Sorry, son. I was debating whether to hang up, you sound so busy.’
‘I am busy, but don’t let that stop you,’ Slider said. His father hardly ever rang, and never at work before. ‘Is everything all right, Dad?’
‘Oh yes, don’t you worry. I’m fine.’
‘Joanna said you wanted to talk to me about something. I’m sorry I haven’t been able to ring you, but I’m not getting home until late and I know you go to bed about half past nine.’
‘Don’t worry about it. I’m sorry to bother you but there’s something that has to be decided, and I need your opinion first. I’ll get right to it. I’m thinking of selling this house.’
There were many things about that statement that required questions to be asked, but the one that got its nose in front was, ‘But you don’t own it. How can you sell it?’ The house he had been born and brought up in had been a tied cottage, for which his father, a farm worker, paid a peppercorn rent.
There was a soft chuckle down the line. ‘Bought it years ago. Just didn’t tell you. It was going to be a nice surprise for you when I popped off. Make up for losing me and all my helpful advice, see.’
It was one of Dad’s jokes. ‘Nothing could make up for losing you. But how come you bought it?’
‘It was when old Mr Davies died. He said in his will I was to be offered it. Afraid if the estate was sold off I’d be chucked out. He was always very good to me and your mother.’
‘Why would the estate be sold off?’ Slider couldn’t help asking, even though he didn’t want to slow his father down in getting to the point.
But Mr Slider said with commendable briefness, ‘Going through a bad patch. As it happened, they come out of it eventually, but at the time young Mr Davies was happy enough to let me have it. Nobody else would’ve wanted it, anyway. Not modern enough, and too far out of the way. Well, I had a bit put by, and there was an endowment policy come in just about then, and it was enough. He didn’t want much for it.’
‘So you’ve owned it all these years?’ He reckoned back to when the estate’s owner – the ‘old lord’ – had died. ‘That must have been twenty years ago.’
‘That’s right. Bit more, even.’
‘So why do you want to sell it now?’ A thought occurred to him. ‘You are all right? You’d tell me if you were ill or anything?’
‘No, I’m fine son. Don’t worry. But I’m getting on a bit now, and the garden’s getting a bit much for me. I don’t need that much land. It’s near-on four acres, you know.’
‘Is it?’
‘Well, I bought the fields either side of the lane. Thought at one time I might keep a few chickens, sell the eggs, but I never got round to it. I just let ’em for grazing. But you’re busy,’ he collected himself. ‘You don’t want to hear all this. Fact is, it’s a long way from anywhere and a bit isolated, so I’m thinking it’s time to be selling up. I just wanted to be sure you didn’t mind.’
‘Why should I mind?’
‘Well, it’s your childhood home. Lot of memories. You might’ve wanted it for yourself. Holiday house or some such.’
‘I’d love to live in it, but it’s far too far to commute. And it would be wonderful for a holiday cottage, but I can’t afford it. I can’t even afford a flat for Jo and me and the baby. But if you sell, where will you live? Oh damn.’ He added the last as Mackay, one of his firm, appeared in the doorway with a look of triumph on his face.
‘What’s that?’ his father said.
‘Someone wants me.’
‘That’s all right, son. I won’t keep you. Just wanted to be sure you didn’t mind if I sold it. We’ll talk about it some other time.’
‘I’ll give you a ring. As soon as I can. It won’t be tonight—’
‘Don’t you worry,’ his father said soothingly. ‘I know how it is. We’ll catch up when you’ve got this case out of the way. Don’t worry till then. Everything’s all right, I promise.’
‘All right. Thanks, Dad.’
‘God bless, son.’ And he was gone.
Mackay had been down at the Black Lion that morning, canvassing the staff, with a copy of Zellah’s photo to show round. ‘I’ve got something, guv,’ he said.
‘Somebody saw Zellah?’ Slider said.
‘Well, guv, I wasn’t that hopeful, if she was picked up from the car park and didn’t go inside. But as it happened, one of the barmen recognised her photo right away. Course, she is good-looking, the sort that turns heads,’ he added. ‘Anyway, this bloke, name of – hang on, I wrote it down.’ He pulled out his notebook and read, ‘Vedran Kosavac. He’s from Croatia.’