‘Then there’s nothing more to say. But I urge you to think carefully about it. Until we can eliminate you from our enquiries you remain a suspect.’
‘But I didn’t do anything!’ Frith protested.
‘You can just help me on one thing.’ Frith looked receptive. ‘You’d known David Rogers for quite some time. What was his connection with Suffolk?’
‘Suffolk?’ said Frith.
‘Yes – it seems he went there regularly. Did he work at a hospital there?’
‘Not that I know of,’ Frith said. ‘But I hadn’t kept up with him, so I don’t really know what he did. Except—’ Something seemed to occur to him. ‘Maybe that was where he kept his boat?’
Slider remembered the photograph in Rogers’s bedroom. ‘He had a boat?’
‘He’d taken up sport fishing in recent years. Bought a boat. Amanda said he was quite a bore about it.’ He shrugged. ‘No worse than golf bores, I suppose. These big consultants all have their rich-man’s hobbies,’ he concluded sourly.
‘You were a bit easy on him,’ Atherton complained to Slider as they trod up the stairs together. ‘The blighter’s taken Amanda’s money and protection, yet he’s banging a trolley dolly behind her back. I almost feel sorry for the Sturgess-type. But you didn’t force him on his alibi. Which in any case isn’t really an alibi,’ he continued, ‘because he says he was alone in his car from just after six until a quarter to seven, and alone in the dolly’s house from a quarter to seven until eight. Virtually two hours unaccounted for. Enough time to drive to Shepherd’s Bush, shoot David Rogers in the head, and drive back to Ruislip.’
‘The killer didn’t drive back to Ruislip. He drove to Stanmore.’
‘Oh, yes. I’d forgotten.’ He thought a bit. ‘But that’s still enough time, out to Stanmore, back to Ruislip, two hours. Easy. And even if it were an alibi, we can’t check it unless he gives us the name and address.’
‘Can’t we?’ Slider said serenely. ‘How many flights from Dubai do BA have that arrived at six fifty-five on Monday morning? And how many of the cabin crew on that flight are called Sue and live in Ruislip? We get her details from BA and check with her. And if she doesn’t exist, we’ll nick him for obstruction.’
‘You’re devious,’ Atherton said admiringly.
‘Maybe I am, and maybe I’m not,’ said Slider.
NINE
Who Dares Whinge
When they walked into the CID room, Emily was there, sitting on Norma’s desk, chatting. Atherton sloped up to her and they greeted each other with studied nonchalance.
‘’Lo.’
‘Wotcher.’
‘’Right?’
‘Uh. You?’
‘Young love!’ Norma said sourly. ‘Can you go and mate on someone else’s desk?’
‘You’re not the same since you had that baby,’ Atherton complained, and added in his Michael Caine voice, ‘You gone all milkified, girl.’ He turned to Emily. ‘When did you get in?’
‘Couple of hours ago. I came to take you out to lunch,’ Emily said. ‘Or have you eaten already?’
‘We had a sandwich, but that was hours ago. A witness lunch. They never satisfy, somehow. You always want another an hour later.’
‘Witness or sandwich?’
‘Both.’
‘No second lunches,’ Slider decreed. ‘We’ve got work to do.’ He cleared a space on the edge of Atherton’s desk, perched and said, ‘Report time. Gather round.’
The troops gave him their attention. McLaren gave as much as he could spare from giving mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to a cheese and pickle sandwich. It looked as though the sandwich wasn’t going to make it.
Slider went over the Frith interview and his possible, though partial, alibi. ‘The good thing is that Amanda Sturgess has been provoked into giving a false alibi. She says Frith was home until she left at a quarter past eight, while he says he left at six. The bad thing is that even if the air hostess checks out, it still gives him time to have gone to Stanmore and get back to Ruislip.’
‘Boss, I don’t understand,’ Connolly said. ‘If the murderer was Frith, and his alibi’s in Ruislip, why would he go to Stanmore at all?’
‘To give back the number plates?’ Mackay hazarded. ‘Maybe he only rented ’em.’
‘Better for Embry if he didn’t give ’em back,’ Hollis said. ‘Then he could claim they were stolen.’
‘But he didn’t report ’em stolen,’ McLaren said. ‘Didn’t want to draw attention to the number.’
‘I don’t understand about the number plates anyway,’ Connolly complained. ‘Why bother with real ones? I mean, why not just make up a number?’
It was Norma who explained. ‘Because you might pick a number the traffic division is looking out for. The patrol cars have on-board ANPR. The last thing you want coming away from a murder is to have the traffic cops on your tail because the number’s in their computer for an uninsured driver or unpaid parking tickets. With a genuine scrapped car you can be sure nobody’s looking for it.’
‘And it’s not that easy to get number plates made, anyway,’ Hollis added. ‘The suppliers and manufacturers are heavily regulated. Any hint o’ wrongdoing and they’d be in a shipload of trouble.’
‘I’m thinking, guv,’ McLaren began, and spoke on resolutely through the woo-hoos. ‘Maybe he was taking the shooter back. We know that was rented. The plates he could dump any time, but he’d need to get rid of the shooter right off.’
‘You’re thinking the armourer is in Stanmore?’ Slider asked.
‘I’m thinking Embry is the armourer. He looks well fit for it.’
‘Something to take on board,’ Slider said. ‘Well, now, someone will have to check Frith’s alibi, such as it is, which means getting hold of this Sue person. Swilley, I’d like you to do that. I trust your instincts. Get on to it as quickly as possible, before he has time to feed her any lines.’
‘Right, boss.’
‘How did you get on with Amanda Sturgess?’ Hollis asked.
‘Was that today? God, it seems like a week ago,’ Slider said. ‘She’s still holding out, admits talking to Rogers but only recently and says it was general chit-chat. But then one of her staff, Angela Fraser, followed us out and volunteered that she was another Rogers girl.’
‘That was the witness lunch,’ Atherton put in.
Slider went over what Angela Fraser had said. ‘It tends to confirm what we already suspected, that there must be other women out there who knew Rogers – or had been known by him. But with the two we know about, at least – Fraser and Aude – he’s been playing it very cagey. Neither of them knows where he worked or what he did, beyond his being “a doctor”. Aude said he worked at a hospital in Stansted, which we know wasn’t true. And Fraser said he went to Suffolk once a week.’
‘Suffolk?’ Hollis queried.
‘That’s a new one,’ said Mackay. ‘What did he go there for?’
‘Somebody has to,’ said Norma, screwing up her face. She hated ‘the country’ with a townie’s pure fervour.
‘We did put it to Frith,’ Slider said, ‘and he suggested it may be where Rogers kept his boat. Apparently he’s recently taken up sport fishing as a hobby.’
‘Huh. All right for some,’ said McLaren. ‘Wish I had time for a hobby.’
There was a brief silence as everyone stared at the famously indolent McLaren. Slider, baffled, said, ‘You have enough time to make your own coal.’
McLaren looked wounded. ‘Hardly sit down, time I’ve finished.’
Slider left it. ‘Now, two things seem to be emerging from this morning’s work. One is that Amanda Sturgess had a great deal more contact with Rogers than she’s admitted to. And her relationship with Frith is a complicated one. He’s financially in hock to her, and resents it, and also spits venom when Rogers is mentioned.’