Gone Tomorrow (15 page)

‘Oh? How traditional.’

‘The brewery didn’t know anything about his service record. Didn’t check it up, apparently. Do you want me to?’

‘Might as well. May give us an insight.’

‘They were a bit antsy about me asking about him,’ Hollis said. ‘I said it was just routine and we had no reason to suspect him of anything. Well, we don’t want to ruin his life if he is innocent, do we?’

‘You’re a regular boy scout. Did they believe you?’

He grinned. ‘Would you believe me if you were them?’

‘Not if he was him and I’d ever met him,’ Slider said.

‘But we’ve covered our arses either way,’ Hollis concluded with satisfaction.

‘That’s the kind of bet I like,’ Slider said.

‘Are you in tomorrow?’ Atherton asked from the doorway.

Slider looked up. ‘No.’

‘Sunday off? Blimey, is that a two-headed calf I see baying at the blue moon?’

It said a lot for Slider’s state of mind that he actually began to turn his head towards the window.

‘I’m having the kids,’ he said. ‘It was arranged ages ago, and if I miss my turn it’s hell’s own job to set it up again.’

Atherton spread his hands a little. ‘You don’t have to justify to me. No reason why you should work Sundays.’

But Slider went on, feeling guilty out of habit. ‘There’s nothing
to be achieved by my being here. And they can call me in if they have to.’

‘Be sure they will if they want to,’ Atherton said.

A detective inspector, whatever agreement he thought had been reached after the Sheehy Report, was expected to be available on a 24/7 basis, as the jargon was. As chief inspectors left and were not replaced, and sergeants like Atherton cannily refused to apply for promotion, inspectors, like Issachar, were the asses couched down between two burdens, inheriting work from both directions. And inspectors were not paid overtime, either, which made them cheaper labour in these budget-conscious days.

‘D’you want to come over for a meal with Sue and me tonight?’ Atherton asked. ‘I’m doing that chicken and rice dish you like.’

Slider hesitated wistfully. Atherton was a noted gourmet and he cooked as good as he tasted. ‘I’ve got all this stuff to finish,’
he concluded. ‘I don’t know how long it’s going to take me. Thanks, but I’ll grab something on the way home.’

‘You’ll get ulcers,’ Atherton predicted. Ah well, you know where I am if you change your mind.’

He left, the office quietened, and Slider sank into his paperwork. Outside on the street Saturday night was winding itself up, and down in the shop they’d be bracing themselves for the influx, later, of drunks and druggies, the combative and the intellectually altered; barmy old gin-dorises wanting a maunder down memory lane, and stinky winos who’d performed their own lobotomies with decades of cheap booze and falling down on their heads; electric-haired conspiracy theorists; smudge-eyed lost teenagers scooped temporarily out of harm’s way; morally vacant youths who thought crime was a lifestyle choice. Black eyes, bleeding noses, wandering wits, sullen silences, vicious insults, foul language, an unstaunchable stream of repetitive stupidity masquerading as cool; smell of fear, smell of feet, smell of beer, smell of pee; and vomit, and blood. All the glamour of the eternal cops ’n’ robbers story.

In his office, in the pool of his desk light, Slider wrote in silence like a don in his tower. All policemen start in uniform. He knew what it was like down there. And once you’ve been on the right side of the counter, it changes your mind-set. You
look at things differently. That was how old pros like Herbie Weedon could spot a copper: the eyes are the window on the soul, and what’s soul if it isn’t mind?

He’d gone so far down that he didn’t hear the phone until it had rung four or five times, as subconscious memory told him as he picked up the receiver.

‘Did I interrupt you in the middle of somebody?’ Joanna said.

‘That’s my line.’ Just the sound of her voice made various parts of him tingle. What was it with her? Most of the blood in his head packed up and headed south, leaving him wanting wits but definitely
homo erectus.
‘Is it the interval?’

‘We’ve not started yet. Ages to go. Concerts here don’t begin until nine. The Spanish like to dine first.’

‘The Spanish?’

‘You get a lot of them in Barcelona,’ she reminded him.

‘Oh. I’d forgotten. I was thinking of you being in Frankfurt.’

‘That was Wednesday. Keep up, Inspector!’

‘Duh,’ he said obligingly.

‘Hey, did I ever tell you the story about the trumpet section in Frankfurt?’

‘You mean with your old orchestra?’

‘Yes, the dear old Royal London Philharmonia. We’d been doing one of those lightning tours, six capitals in seven days, and we’d all got a bit punch-drunk. Anyway, we were doing Shostakovich Five, and there’s a long, long passage in the third movement when the trumpets aren’t playing. It’s second trumpet’s job to count, so Bob Preston, who was playing first, had sort of drifted off. Not asleep, you understand, but just totally vacant. You get that way on the road. Anyway, suddenly he comes to himself, grabs Brian’s knee – that’s the second trumpet – and hisses, “Where the fuck are we?” So Brian whispers, “It’s all right, Bob, we’ve got fifteen bars to go.” And Bob grips harder and hisses desperately, “Not that, you dork, which
town!
”’

Slider snorted. ‘I know the feeling.’

‘I know, my darling, I’ve seen you like it. You shouldn’t be there at this time of night.’

‘I’ve nearly finished.’

‘Then what are you going to do?’

‘Go home, I suppose.’ He heard how glum that sounded and made an effort. ‘Atherton did invite me over for dinner, but …’

‘And you refused? Have you been bungee jumping off short buildings again?’

‘Well, he’s got Sue now. I don’t want to play gooseberry.’

‘Jim’s a big boy.’

‘What?’

‘So I’ve heard. Anyway, he wouldn’t ask you if he didn’t want you.’

‘Oh, well, it’s too late now.’

‘No it isn’t. It’s only half past seven.’

‘Is it? I thought it was much later than that. Well, maybe I will, then.’

‘Yes, do. Pack up and go now. Then I can stop worrying for one night at least that you aren’t eating properly.’

‘I wish you were here,’ he mentioned.

‘If I were, eating would be the last thing on your mind.’

‘Or any other part of my anatomy. What time do you get in on Monday?’

‘Ten-fifty. I suppose you won’t be able to meet me.’ It was not a question.

‘Come straight here and we can have lunch,’ he suggested.

‘And I suppose if you’ve got a murder case on we’ll have hardly any time together,’ she sighed. ‘Why can’t people hold off from killing each other for two minutes together? Interfering with my love life! I could kill them.’

‘It’s a pity you couldn’t have come tomorrow, when I’m having the day off.’

‘Saturdays and Sundays are when they have concerts, dear,’ she explained kindly. ‘Besides, you’ll have the children. Never mind, we’ll just have to catch as catch can. I’d better go. This is costing a fortune.’

‘Off you go, then. Play well.’

‘I always do. Go and get fed.’

‘Did you say “come to bed”?’

‘As Monica said to Bill, “Close, but no cigar.” I’ll see you on Monday. Bye.’

Slider replaced the receiver, stretched mightily, stacked his papers together, and got up. Half an hour later he was knocking at the door of Atherton’s small house in Kilburn, a gussied-up
Victorian artisan’s cottage – or artesian cottage, as Joanna called it, on account of the damp. Here Atherton had always lived the flighty bachelor life, with a rusty black tom called Oedipus who could be trusted to make himself scarce out by the catflap when his master eased prime totty through the front door.

But things were changing. Oedipus had died, gently of old age under the ceanothus, and – unwisely, Slider thought, but probably with some urging from Sue – Atherton had bought not one but two teenage Siameses to fill the gap, on the basis that they would keep each other company while Atherton was out working. However, what Sredni Vashtar and Tiglath Pileser mostly did while Atherton was out was to egg each other on to ever greater feats of vandalism. A couple of mobile shredders was what they were. No toilet roll was safe, and Atherton now had lace curtains in every room.

The other new thing in Atherton’s life was Sue Caversham, a violinist friend of Joanna’s. She opened the door to him now, a kitten teetering on each shoulder, their tails straight up as though they were suspended by them from the ceiling. Music was throbbing gently behind her, a violin concerto. Slider was getting better at recognising classical music but he couldn’t place this one. Modern-ish. Not Tchaik or Mendelssohn or Brahms, anyway.

‘Hullo,’ she said, and the kits – Tig and Vash as they tended to get called – said ‘Mwah’ and ‘Ftang’ respectively. The smell of chicken wafted from the kitchen. ‘Jim thought you might come.’

‘Joanna rang and broke my concentration,’ he confessed, following her in and shutting the door. ‘She said you wouldn’t mind if I turned up.’

‘Of course not.’

‘Thanks,’ said Slider. ‘What is that?’

‘The music? Prokofiev. How is she?’

‘Okay, as far as I know. She told me a story about Bob Preston.’

‘Oh, well, that’s all right then. Glass of wine?’

‘Thanks.’

‘Have a cat,’ she said, and scooped Sredni Vashtar from her shoulder to his. The cat purred, kneading bread with a fine pinging of jacket threads, head-butted him affectionately; and then did one of its disconcerting flying-squirrel leaps, kicking
off lightly from Slider’s shoulder and sailing through the air to land five feet away halfway up the curtains, where it clung, looking back over its shoulder as if waiting for the applause. Sue had missed it, having turned away to pour Slider’s wine. At the same moment, Atherton appeared in the door to the kitchen and nodded a greeting.

‘I’m glad to hear you’re taking the day off tomorrow,’ Sue said to Slider, still with her back turned. At least that means Jim gets some time off too. I know it’s overtime for him, but for a wonder I was free on Wednesday and Thursday, and it’s a pain when he has to work on my evenings off. I get so few of them.’

Atherton’s face was inscrutable, but as Sue turned back with the glass of wine, he met Slider’s eyes over her head.

Slider adjusted seamlessly. ‘Yes, I’m sorry about that. Needs must.’

‘You’re a bleeding slave-driver,’ Sue told him genially.

‘Dinner won’t be five minutes,’ Atherton said, disappearing again.

Slider sipped some wine to avoid having to think of anything to say. What was Atherton up to? Or rather, who? Slider had thought all that was behind him. Damn and blast it, what was this self-destructive streak in him? He itched to kick his bagman’s well-tailored bags.

‘So which Bob Preston story was it?’ Sue asked. Her blue eyes were merry and sympathetic, and Slider couldn’t help feeling she knew exactly what had just been passing through his mind.

Sod’s Law said that if you got an urgent call it would always come at the time when you were least able to obey it. O’Flaherty called Slider when he was heading in exactly the wrong direction with a carful of children. Well, there were actually only two of them, but it felt like a carful when he was trying to have a telephone conversation through one of their routine did-didn’t quarrels.

‘Issat you, Billy?’

‘You rang me. Who did you expect? Jodie Foster?’

‘Ah, that’s a sexy female,’ O’Flaherty breathed. ‘Is she there, then?’

‘If you’ve called me just to talk nonsense I’m going to kill you, next spare moment I get.’

‘I’m safe then,’ said O’Flaherty. ‘You’ll have forgotten by then. Listen, I’ve got Billy Cheeseman in here looking for you.’

It took Slider a moment to remember that was One-Eyed Billy’s surname. ‘Has he got something for me?’

‘He might have. He says he wants a meet.’

‘Wants a
meet?’
Slider hated that pseudo-cool expression, especially in the hands of a terminally dopey specimen like One-Eyed Billy.

‘He won’t tell me what it’s all about. Says he can only tell you. Seems fidgety, eyes flittin’ everywhere like a virgin at a wake.’

‘That’s not like him,’ Slider said. ‘He’s too daft to be nervous normally. Maybe he has got something. I’ll be there as soon as I can.’

‘And when’ll that be?’

‘Half an hour, forty minutes.’

‘Sure God, he’ll have gone off the boil by then!’

‘I can’t help it. I’m on the way to drop the kids off at school. I can’t tip them out on the dual carriageway, can I? You’ll have to hold the fort until I get there.’

As he holstered the telephone his brain wanted to race off and speculate, but he yanked it back. He saw so little of the children, they deserved his full attention. He examined them as he tried discreetly to speed up. Matthew, slumped in the front seat with the aggressive relaxation of adolescence, looked as if he had slept in his clothes. It was an effect he could achieve within minutes of putting them on freshly laundered. The same mysterious alchemy could turn a tidy bedroom into something resembling Dresden, while Matthew had apparently been lying completely immobile on his bed.

Kate was bouncing up and down on the back seat like one of those Furbies on elastic. Her school uniform looked like a fashion statement. Her brown hair was the same heavy, shiny texture as her mother’s, and like Irene she wore it short, the better to set off her sweet face and blue eyes. They were his eyes, but otherwise she looked the image of Irene when he had first known her: neat, pretty, self-contained. Any minute now, he thought with a father’s pain, she would start on the boy
business, and these days that didn’t just mean exchanging sentimental notes and static, breathy kisses. Various scenarios slouched like rough beasts towards his imagination and he flinched from them. Would Irene advise her effectively? Would Ernie Newman, the new step-father, protect her? Could Slider have, had he and Irene not split up? Children these days were exposed to so much so early.

He was aware that Kate had asked him a question and was waiting for an answer.