‘That’s only what he says. What better reason could he have for lying about it? This is just what we needed – the grit in the oyster, round which the theory forms.’
Slider looked unhappy. ‘My life is all grit. I should like to have a bit of oyster round it. It occurs to me that this feeds in to your alternative theory just as well – that Wilding did it. If he knew about it.’
‘Suits me,’ said Atherton cheerfully. ‘Either one.’
‘Except, would he really kill his own grandchild, if he knew about it?’
‘Then perhaps he didn’t know. Look, enough thinking for now. I’m hungry. You’re hungry. The brain needs feeding. Out there somewhere there’s a piece of rock salmon with your name on it, and the gnomes down at the chip face are this moment hewing out potato delicacies and hand-carving them to your exacting requirements.’
Slider stood up again with a tired smile. ‘Enough. I get the picture. No more thought.’
Atherton handed him his jacket. ‘Keep that promise, and there’s a pickled egg in it for you.’ They walked out into the corridor. ‘Reminds me of the old saying,’ he went on. ‘You know the one: give a man a fish, and he’ll eat for a day. Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat and drink beer all day.’
‘You are certifiably nuts,’ Slider said, but he laughed, which was what Atherton had been aiming for.
FIFTEEN
Whores de Combat
The fish and chips definitely came under the category of Things That Sounded Like A Good Idea At The Time. The Chizzick Chippy – as they had taken to spelling themselves lately for inscrutable Lebanese reasons – did a rock and chips to die for, and during the short hours of the night Slider thought he was going to.
As Atherton had bought Emily a poke of chips to keep them company, it was natural for Slider to offer a drink to go with, and he happened to have some bottles of Marston’s Pedigree in the kitchen cupboard. By the time Joanna got back they had settled in for conversation. She wasn’t sleepy yet and wanted a beer too, and chip envy drove her to propose making herself a toasted cheese sandwich. Naturally Atherton, who cooked even better than he made love (according to his CV) jumped up chivalrously and offered to do the making. Pretty soon it was toasted cheese all round, which on top of the fish and chips was like signing a pact never to sleep again this side of the Apocalypse (which took place later in Slider’s large intestine).
They talked about the case of course, and the sad and interesting news that Zellah had been pregnant.
‘Maybe that’s why she suddenly wanted to see this Carmichael bloke,’ Emily said. ‘To persuade him to help her. Pay for an abortion, if nothing else.’ She looked round at them. ‘She must have been terrified, poor thing. Think of having to face a father like that, or having him find out! And from what you’ve said she wouldn’t have any money, or access to any. I don’t know whether she knew Carmichael was a drug dealer—’
‘I don’t know either,’ Slider said. ‘But it would have been apparent that he had a reasonable amount of money, anyway. His own flat, a very expensive motorbike . . .’
‘And she must have thought at least that he was cool and streetwise, the sort of person who would know how to arrange it.’
‘That’s a very good point,’ Joanna said. ‘Who else could she turn to?’
‘But she hadn’t rung Carmichael on her mobile since the beginning of June, and assuming for the moment that means she wasn’t seeing him, why would she think he’d believe it was his baby?’ Slider said. ‘And if it wasn’t, why would he help her?’
‘Well,’ said Joanna, ‘as to point one, how would she know how far along she was if she hadn’t seen a doctor? OK, she must have missed periods to suspect she was pregnant, and maybe she bought one of those kits at a chemist and tested herself, but she might not have been savvy enough to work it back to an exact date. She might have thought it was him, or at least thought it was possible. As to point two . . . I’ve forgotten what point two was.’
‘Why would he help her?’ Atherton supplied.
‘Oh. Well, as I said before, who else could she ask? If you’re desperate, you don’t worry too much about motivation. You just yell “help!”’
‘Carmichael’s the one I’d go to,’ Emily said. ‘In her situation,’ she added, intercepting Atherton’s look. ‘What did he say about it?’
‘Carmichael? About the pregnancy? We haven’t spoken to him about it yet,’ Slider said. ‘He didn’t mention it to us, which is odd, because it would make a much better reason for them to have had a big row, especially as he’s claiming he hadn’t been out with her since May, which would mean it wasn’t his.’
‘Maybe he chose May as the cut-off point for that very reason,’ Joanna said.
‘Maybe,’ Slider agreed. ‘But as a story it still makes more sense than this stuff about her meeting someone else, making a second date after the one with him.’
‘That,’ Joanna said, finishing the last crusty corner of her sandwich with obvious relish, ‘is so lame it might just be true.’
‘Anyway,’ Atherton said, ‘once we’ve got the DNA typed we can prove it was his baby, and then we’ve got him.’
‘Have you?’ Emily said.
They exchanged a long look; the sort that passes between people who have talked together so much they know each other’s thought processes.
‘I take your point,’ Atherton said. ‘We don’t all kill our firstborn. Even if it was Carmichael’s baby, it doesn’t mean Wilding didn’t find out and decide in a Biblical rage that Zellah had to die.’
‘Poor old Bible,’ Emily said. ‘It does get a bad press. Did she keep a diary?’
‘Not that we’ve found,’ Slider said. ‘But I suppose her father might have destroyed it.’
‘It’s just that it’s usual to mark in your diary when your period’s due . . .’
‘Don’t add more complications, please.’
‘I’m sorry to have to say it,’ Joanna said, ‘but in a small house like that, he may have been aware anyway that she hadn’t had a period for a couple of months. A period’s not an easy thing to keep secret when you share a bathroom.’
‘Yucky, but true,’ Atherton consented. ‘Well, we’ve got to find him first. And then of course there’s still Ronnie Oates, the Acton Strangler.’
‘I thought you’d ruled him out,’ Emily said.
‘Not at all. You can never be sure that someone irrational didn’t do something irrational, especially when his account of what he was doing is irrational,’ Atherton said. ‘And when you know he was on the spot. And has a predilection for seeing ladies wearing their tights round their necks. But then, who doesn’t? On which note,’ he stood up, ‘I think I’d better take you home.’
‘You give me so much confidence in my personal safety,’ Emily assured him.
‘Sometimes I’m ashamed to be a man,’ he said. ‘But if I switched now, I’d have to buy a whole new wardrobe.’
There was nothing like standing in for a major acid manufacturing plant to make you feel glad about being woken up early by a crying baby. He could have kissed little George – in fact he did, and whisked him away to change his nappy and make his breakfast. While he was busy, he heard Joanna go to the bathroom, and a few moments later she came into the kitchen, looking a little bleary, but ready to do her duty.
‘I’ll take over, if you like.’
‘I didn’t want you to wake up. I tried not to disturb you,’ Slider said.
‘Are you kidding me? It was like sleeping with a harpooned octopus in its dying throes. What was it? Indijaggers?’