‘Yes, sir,’ said Slider. ‘Provided we can find out without being obvious. He’s not a suspect until we know he’s done something suspicious.’
‘Can’t find out if he’s been suspicious until you ask. Which came first, the chicken or the road? Well, keep at it. I’ve got to go and tell Mr Wetherspoon where we are.’
That’d be up the junction without a paddle, Slider thought. It’s a long road that gathers no moss.
Connolly’s work in setting up a rapport with Andy Bamford reaped its reward, saving her another trip to Sarratt. She rang her ‘for a chat’ and found her new friend only too eager, though she was obliged to book the first of a course of lessons to allay possible suspicion that she was time-wasting. Still, she could always cancel later. In the course of the ensuing bunny, Connolly had as much difficulty in easing Andy round to the subject of Robin Frith as in getting a compass to point north. After considerable discussion of the horse he had taken for hydrotherapy and how good he was with animals and how much he cared for them – ‘They’re not just a way to make money to him, like a lot of trainers I could mention,’ – and his prospects of having another winner at Badminton this year, Connolly said eagerly that she was really keen to meet him, asked wistfully if he would be taking her lesson, and added, ‘Oh, d’you know, I think maybe I saw him when I was going through the village the other day. Early Monday morning. I bet he comes in really early, doesn’t he?’
‘Yeah. He’s here by seven most mornings.’
‘It could have been him, then. Does he drive a black BMW – a seven series?’
Andy laughed. ‘A Beamer? No, he’s got a four-by-four, a Mitsubishi Shogun. He wouldn’t have room in an ordinary car for all the stuff he carries – tack and rugs and everything. And it has to pull a trailer. It is black, though.’
‘Oh,’ said Connolly, sounding disappointed. ‘I was sure it was him. It was a dead handsome man in a black BMW. Maybe he has an ordinary car as well? I could swear I saw it going into your stables.’
‘Well, he might have another car, I don’t know, but I’ve never known him bring it here,’ Andy said. ‘He always comes in the Shogun. Anyway, he wasn’t in early Monday morning, so that can’t have been him. He had an appointment at Archers, the feed merchant in Hemel, at eleven and he said it wasn’t worth coming in first. He said he’d work from home and go straight there, so he didn’t come in until the afternoon.’
‘So it doesn’t get us any further forward with the car,’ Connolly said to Slider. ‘He might or might not have a Beamer. And anyway, guv, it occurs to me any murderer might hire, borrow or steal a car rather than use his own, when he’s going to a murder.’
‘That thought had occurred to me, too,’ Slider reassured her. ‘We have to cover the bases.’
‘Right, guv. But if the feed merchant’s his alibi, that’s easy enough to check.’ She looked at him hopefully.
Slider thought a moment. If Frith had been at the stables, all present and correct, at the appropriate time, he would happily have dropped him, having no real reason to suspect him of anything. But by his own rule of clearing as you went, he ought at least to make sure the man was accounted for. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘Check it out. Discreetly.’
‘Sure, they’ll never know I’ve been there,’ she assured him. ‘I’ll be in and out like Jimmy the Dip in a punter’s pocket.’
Slider had just got back to his office when Joanna rang. ‘Is it any use asking you about having the children over at the weekend?’ she asked. ‘Irene just rang. She and Ernie want to go to a bridge rally thing at Aylesbury, organized by Rotary. Sooner them than me.’
‘I’m with you on that one,’ Slider said, settling in behind his desk. The cup of tea someone had brought him before he was interrupted had got tepid. He didn’t like tea unless it was almost too hot to drink. He pushed it sadly away.
‘Well, she sounded really keen. Did you never play together?’
‘Oh, once or twice. I don’t mind it as a game, but I can’t treat it like a religion, like these real bridge enthusiasts. But Irene liked it as a way to meet what she called nice people.’
‘Aren’t we nice people?’ Joanna said indignantly.
‘I’m a policeman, and you’re a policeman’s wife. Of course we’re not nice.’
‘I’m a musician.’
‘Comes out the same. Irene never approved of anyone who worked unsocial hours. I think ideally she’d have liked to marry a solicitor – office hours, nice suits and plenty of money.’
Joanna laughed, but a little reproachfully. ‘She can’t really be that shallow. You loved her once.’
‘I’m sorry. I did, of course. And she has many good qualities. I just never brought out the best in her. Dad always used to say there was only one reason marriages broke up – you weren’t suited to each other.’ Hollis appeared in the doorway, with Atherton behind him. ‘I’ll have to go. Someone wants me.’
‘I certainly do,’ Joanna said seductively. ‘And just as soon as you get home I’m going to get you out of those wet clothes and into a hot bath, young man.’
He grinned, feeling his automatic twitch of reaction to her. Even after all this time . . . Ain’t love grand? ‘Stop it, people are watching,’ he said. ‘What was it you phoned me for?’
‘This weekend. Having the children.’
‘Oh yes. Of course, by all means, but you know I can’t promise I’ll be there. But if you’re willing. And around.’
‘I’m around except for Saturday night – repeat of Friday’s concert. But your dad can babysit.’
‘Thank God for Dad,’ Slider said.
‘I’ll second that,’ said Joanna.
‘Guv, we’ve got to the end of the possibilities on that reg number,’ Hollis said, the list in his hand. ‘We struck off all the 03s to start with. McLaren says that car on the CCTV couldn’t be that old. It’s got the all-in-one intake grille, and that didn’t come in until 2008.’ He looked at Slider, who got the significance.
‘Right.’ He nodded.
‘McLaren might be a pain –’ Atherton put it into words – ‘but he does know about cars.’
‘So that cut it down a good bit,’ Hollis went on. ‘Then we ran the possible 08 numbers that were issued to BMWs, and there weren’t many of those.’ He looked down at his list. ‘Just six, in fact. We’ve checked them out and they’re all accounted for. D’you want me to go over them with you?’
‘No, I trust you. So what does that leave us with?’
Hollis picked it up. ‘There was one car, with the last letter a W. It was an Astra, not a BMW, but it was in an RTA a couple o’ months ago and written off. Went to a scrapyard in Stanmore – Embry’s.’
It was a well-known ploy. Just as those wanting a false identity trawled churchyards for names of people who died in infancy but would have been the right age had they lived, so those wanting false number plates trawled scrapyards for dead cars of the right vintage.
‘It’s worth looking into,’ Slider said. ‘Let’s put that number through the ANPR. If we get a ping on a dead one, we’ll know we’re in business.’
‘Might get a picture of the driver, too,’ Atherton said. ‘Wouldn’t that be nice?’
‘It would be wonderful,’ Slider said, ‘if it were Robin Frith. But if it’s a complete stranger . . .’
‘Anyone can hire a professional killer.’
‘Yes, but tracing him back to the one with the motive is the good trick,’ Slider concluded.
The ANPR did its thing and the number of the scrapped car duly came up, striking joy into all hearts.