Game Over (4 page)

‘People can forget,’ Slider said, helping her out.

‘Not Dad,’ she said. ‘He was a journalist. Communication is everything. Anyway, I took a taxi home and let myself in. And I saw—’ She couldn’t quite, for all her determination, say it aloud. She took a breath and said, ‘You know what I saw. So I rang the police.’

‘You didn’t touch anything or move anything?’

‘I know that much. I went across to Dad just in case—’ She shook her head. ‘I could see it was no good.’ She met Slider’s eyes. ‘I’ve never seen anyone dead before. Of course, Dad’s seen dozens, maybe hundreds of bodies. I suppose if I want to call myself a proper journalist I ought to be able to face up to things like that. But it’s hard when it’s your own father. It must be harder, surely, than with a stranger?’

He saw that she wanted him to answer. She was deferring to his knowledge, given his job, of looking at dead bodies. He was touched, and impressed that her intellect was still functioning independently. She was not one who would enjoy the histrionics of grief, and he had seen plenty of those over a long career and admired her for it. ‘I think it’s always hard, whether it’s a stranger or not,’ he said. ‘If you care about people. Something has been taken away that can’t be replaced.’

He felt Atherton stir at that, and supposed it a rebuke for getting too personal. But this woman was going to have to help them a lot, and he wanted to treat her as an equal by taking her questions seriously.

‘You don’t get used to it?’ she followed up his answer.

‘Not really,’ he said. ‘You cope.’ She nodded thoughtfully, and he got back on line. ‘You say you let yourself in?’

‘I have my own key,’ she said.

‘You have your own room there?’

‘Not that, exactly. I don’t keep any stuff with him any more – that’s all in New York. But somehow, wherever Dad lives is still “home” to me.’

‘Does anyone else have a key that you know of?’

She shook her head, but a faint colour touched her pale face. ‘I don’t know for sure, but he might have given one to Candida.’

‘Candida?’

‘You don’t know about her? She’s his . . . girlfriend? Mistress? I don’t know what the proper term is. I’m not being censorious,’ she added with a frank look. ‘I don’t mind about her, honestly. Why should I? Mummy’s dead, and anyway
she
left
him
long before that. He’s entitled to a life of his own. I just don’t know how you would classify her. Candida Scott-Chatton. I expect you know who she is?’

Atherton anticipated Slider’s ignorance. ‘She’s the head of the Countryside Protection Trust and a spokesman on ecological matters.’

Emily Stonax looked at him. ‘And a journalist.’

‘Yes, I’ve heard of her,’ Slider said, who actually had –
and
had seen her on television, round about the time of the Countryside March. Tall, blonde, aristocratic, gorgeous. And hard as nails – as he supposed she’d have to be with such a thankless brief. ‘Do you have an address for her?’

‘Ten, Hyde Park Terrace,’ she said promptly. ‘It’s just off Queen’s Gate, near the Albert Hall. I think she and Dad were quite close. I mean, she stuck by him after that business last year?’ The sentence ended on an upward note as she looked to see if Slider understood the reference. He nodded. ‘I suppose someone will have to tell her,’ she added, faltering.

‘We’ll do that. Unless you’d rather . . .?’

‘No. God no. I don’t want to have to tell anyone – is that normal?’

‘It’s normal not to want to put it into words.’

‘That’s what it is,’ she said eagerly. ‘If I say it, it will make it real. Luckily there’s no family to speak of. Since Mummy died, it’s just the two of us.’

‘So, no other keys that you know of?’

‘No. He wouldn’t have handed them out. I don’t even know that Candida had one, really. Dad was quite safety-conscious. I mean, there were locks on all the windows and a deadlock on the door.’ She looked at him thoughtfully. ‘The door was closed when I got there and there was no damage to it. I mean, someone didn’t jemmy their way in. Is that why you’re asking about keys? That policewoman I spoke to said it was a burglary. Is that what you think it was?’

‘His wallet and watch seem to be missing. His pockets were empty, and they haven’t been found anywhere else in the house.’

‘Someone killed him and went through his pockets?’ Tears jumped into her eyes for the first time. ‘They killed him for
that
?’

‘We don’t know if anything else is missing. The flat is very tidy and there’s no sign of any disturbance.’

‘Yes, Dad was always very tidy.’ She wiped the wetness from below her eyes. ‘He gave me a hard time in my teenage rebel years. But it was a good lesson to learn.’

‘Do you know if he kept anything valuable about the house?’

‘Well, the paintings and bronzes were quite valuable, and those little Etruscan figures on the mantelpiece.’

‘They’re still there.’

‘I don’t think he ever had much cash about him – he preferred cards, like I do. He wasn’t the sort to have envelopes full of tenners in a shoe box in the wardrobe, if that’s what you mean.’

‘Did he have a safe on the premises?’

‘I don’t think so. He’s never had one to my knowledge. But I suppose he might have had one put in recently and not told me about it. It wasn’t something that would ever come up in conversation.’

‘Later, when the forensic teams have finished, I’d like you to come back to the flat, if you will, and look around, see if you can tell if anything’s missing.’

‘Yes, of course,’ she said. She studied his face. ‘You don’t think it was a burglar, do you? You don’t think he was killed for what was in his pockets?’

‘I’m not at the stage of thinking anything yet. I have to consider all possibilities.’

She was thinking. ‘If it wasn’t burglary, I know the next question: did he have any enemies?’

‘Something like that,’ Slider said with a small smile, admiring her spirit. She reminded him a little of Joanna, in the way her mind worked doggedly through the logic. (Joanna! He must phone her before she left Eastbourne.)

Emily Stonax blew her nose, reached into the massive handbag by her feet to exchange the soggy tissue for a fresh one, and said, shaking her head, ‘He was a well-known figure. Thousands of people knew him from television, millions probably recognised him, and there are so many nutcases about these days who will attack anyone famous. Look at Jill Dando. But if that’s what it was, it’s no use looking for reasons, is it? As to specific enemies, it’s hard to think anyone could hate him enough to kill him. He was such a
good
man. He was honest, and he was an idealist. He
believed
in goodness.’

Atherton spoke. ‘He was a career journalist, and then he worked for the government, but we haven’t heard anything of him since that trouble last year. Do you know what he’s been doing since he left the DTI?’

A spot of colour appeared in her cheeks. ‘He didn’t leave. It was character assassination. He hasn’t had another job since. How could he, after that? No-one would touch him. As far as I know he’s been living on his capital.’

Atherton said, ‘But a man like him wouldn’t do
nothing
.’

‘No, I’m sure he kept up his interests – his charity work and so on – but he was terribly shocked and low for a while after the photograph thing. Although just lately I’ve suspected there
was
something he was working on.’

‘Only suspected?’ Slider said.

‘Well, he usually talked to me about his work, but if it was something investigative and serious he would keep it to himself until it was all worked out. Not that he didn’t trust me, he just wouldn’t tell anyone. That way no-one could be put in a difficult position. And just lately when I’ve phoned it’s been quite hard to talk to him, as if his mind was elsewhere. He gets like that when he’s writing sometimes. You talk to him but nothing much comes back. It’s like blowing out of a window.’

She obviously thought of something, and Slider said encouragingly, ‘Yes?’

‘Well, I had been meaning to come over for a visit next month, but when I rang Dad to thank him for my birthday present, he asked me if I could make it sooner. As it happened I didn’t have anything urgent on, so I said I’d see if I could get a last-minute ticket, and I did.’

‘Did he say why he wanted you to come?’

‘I asked, of course, and he said he had something he wanted to talk to me about, but he wouldn’t tell me what. I said couldn’t it wait until next month, and he said it
was
rather urgent, but that it was nothing to worry about, and not to be anxious.’

‘So what did you
think
it might be about?’ Atherton asked, intrigued.

‘Well, my first thought was that he’d got some bad news about his health. Then I thought – well, I thought maybe he and Candida were getting married or something. Although there was no reason not to tell me that on the phone. So I assumed it must be something work-related, that maybe he had a really hot story lead for me.’

‘Couldn’t he have told you about that on the phone?’ said Atherton.

‘Phones aren’t secure, you know. Suppose it was something to do with the government? The US government, I mean. You never know who might be listening. And there’d be documentary evidence to show me. Papers, photos. But that was just a guess. He was being tight-lipped, and when he’s like that you can’t shift him.’

There was a knock at the door and Swilley looked in to say that Porson was back. Slider decided to take a break. Miss Stonax was looking drained.

‘I still have some more questions I’d like to ask you,’ he said, ‘and I’d like you to look at the flat later, but I can see you’re tired and you must be hungry by now.’

She considered a moment. ‘I’m starving,’ she discovered.

‘Then may I suggest that Constable Asher here takes you up to the canteen, and you can get some lunch, and we’ll talk again afterwards. How would that be?’

She shrugged. ‘I’ve nowhere else to go,’ she said bleakly.

That was so true, it gave Slider a pang of pity. ‘Is there anything else we can do for you?’ he asked gently.

‘I’d love a shower and a change of clothes. I’ve been in these things since yesterday.’

Slider nodded. ‘Asher will show you where. You’ve got things in your bag to change into, I imagine?’

‘Obviously,’ she said, and then remembered her manners. ‘I mean, thank you. You’re very kind.’

Outside, in the corridor, Atherton said, ‘Poor kid.’

‘Kid? That’s a bit rich, coming from you.’

‘Manner of speaking,’ Atherton said. ‘So, what do you think?’

‘It could be that he was investigating something after all—’

‘And it turned round and bit him?’ Atherton finished.

‘Yes, but what could it be that was worth his death? Let’s not get carried away by conspiracy theories. It could still have been simple robbery.’

Atherton rolled his eyes. ‘Must you always see both sides of everything?’

‘And it could have been accidental,’ Slider went on reasonably. ‘Maybe the intruder only wanted to knock him out, and just hit him too hard. And then panicked and ran away.’

Three

So Long Succour

P
orson was standing by the window, reading. He hardly ever sat down unless he really had to. He looked up at Slider appeared in the doorway and raised his eyebrows.

‘Got something already?’

‘Not yet, sir. There’s something else I need to talk to you about.’ He closed the door and told him about the telephone call from The Needle.

Porson frowned, fiddling with a paper clip. ‘He knew you were in the car?’

‘It may have been a lucky guess. Or he may have been able to hear the engine noise in the background.’

‘Or he may have been following you,’ Porson concluded. He thought a moment. ‘If he knew you were on your mobile, he must have known we could trace the call.’

‘I’ve put Swilley on it already.’

‘Then as soon as he rings again we can pinpoint him?’

‘Yes, and he must know that as well as we do,’ Slider said.

‘Hmm. What’s he up to?’ Porson said.

‘Playing us for fools, if I know anything about him,’ Slider said. ‘It won’t be that easy to catch him.’

The eyebrows levelled out. ‘Well, it’s out of our hands now, anyway. He’s a big player and he’s wanted in high places. I’ll pass it on to Mr Wetherspoon and he’ll pass it to SOCA, or whichever SO is handling him. It’ll take it off our budget and manpower, at least.’

‘That’s a blessing, sir,’ said Slider.

Porson gave him a scowl for the irony. ‘Don’t you think of going after him on your own!’ he barked. ‘I’m not interested in mock heroics!’

‘How do you feel about the real kind?’ Slider murmured, though he knew he shouldn’t.