‘But we’re not telling ’em any more than her name and that we’re treating it as murder. Don’t want them getting prurient about it. Her parents have got enough to be coping with, without the sex angle.’
‘It will leak out that she was strangled. The dog-walker who found her will tell.’
‘It’ll get out in time, it always does, but that’s not our providence. You can’t make an omelette without breaking step. So what are you up to? Got any lines?’
Slider told him where they were on Carmichael.
‘Looks like the evidence is stacking up on him all right,’ Porson said. ‘I’ll get on to Woodley Green, ask them nicely to keep an eye out for him, especially at his mum’s house. You’ve got people out in Notting Hill?’
‘Yes, sir, looking for a flat above a tarot shop.’
‘Be a few of those,’ Porson said, echoing Atherton. ‘Can’t chuck a brick round that way without hitting some of that dippy mystic stuff.’
‘We’ll find it, sir.’
‘And what then?’
‘If he’s there, we’ll arrest him for questioning. We’ve got enough to nab him, given that he ran away.’
‘And if he isn’t there?’ Porson moved restlessly back and forth, unwinding a paper clip and then bending the resultant length of metal back and forth in his big, chalky fingers until it snapped. ‘Can’t search his gaff without a warrant, and it’ll be hell’s own job getting one without more evidence than that. If it was on our own ground that’d be one thing, but you know what our brothers in Notting Hill are like. Don’t like people raining on their shed without all the eyes crossed and the tees dotted.’ He selected another paper clip and resumed the exercise. ‘He’s got to come home sooner or later,’ he concluded. ‘If he’s not there, put someone on obbo and nab him as soon as they see him.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘And meanwhile,’ Porson went on, ‘what about Ronnie Oates? Now there’s a little toerag you can get your teeth into.’
‘I’m sending Hollis out to see his mum. He’ll get it out of her where Ronnie is. And we’ve got a sighting of someone who fits his description hanging around the Scrubs that evening.’
‘Good. Excellent. I’d like to get him put away properly. They didn’t jug him half hard enough last time, and if it was him . . .’ The paper clip snapped audibly. ‘That pretty girl, not even seventeen . . .’ His eyes lifted to Slider’s. ‘Sometimes I hate this job.’
‘At least we get to do something about it,’ Slider said, offering his own comfort, ‘even if it isn’t enough.’
The steel re-entered Porson’s soul. ‘Is that you sympathizing with me?’ he barked.
‘No, sir. Just passing a comment,’ Slider said hastily.
‘When I want pity, I’ll ask for it. And it’ll be a warm day in Hull before that happens, I can tell you.’
‘I know that, sir.’
‘Well, get on with it, then. No use to anyone standing round like a spare plate at a wedding. Get weaving.’
Slider was hardly back in his office when the phone rang.
‘Is that Inspector Slider? It’s Derek Wilding here, Zellah’s – Zellah’s father. I understand you’re the person to talk to.’
‘I am the investigating officer. I’m so sorry for your loss, Mr Wilding. Is there something I can help you with?’
‘I hope perhaps I can help you. The other officer – I think his name was Atherton?’
‘Detective Sergeant Atherton, that’s right.’
‘Well, he asked about Zellah’s mobile phone, asked me for the number and make of it. Said it could be traced from the signal.’
‘That’s right. Unfortunately, we haven’t been able to trace it because it seems to have been turned off.’
‘Yes, Mr Atherton said it could only be traced if it was turned on,’ said Wilding. ‘The thing is, I’ve just found it.’
‘You’ve found the mobile?’
‘Yes, it was here in her room. In the drawer of her bedside cabinet. I was just – I was in her room. Looking at things.’ He swallowed audibly, and resumed, his tone pleading. ‘Her things are there. It’s all I have left. It still . . . smells of her.’ His voice broke altogether, and Slider fought with his own pity to remain steady and grounded.
‘I understand, Mr Wilding. Please don’t feel you need to explain. Now, this mobile – you’re sure it’s hers?’
‘Of course I am. I bought it for her.’
‘I’m just surprised she didn’t take it with her.’
‘She must have forgotten it.’ His voice wobbled again as he said, ‘It’s terrible that she didn’t have it with her that night. I can’t help thinking—’ He cleared his throat and regained control. ‘What if she wanted to call me, and she couldn’t? What if she was frightened? What if I could have saved her?’
‘You mustn’t think like that,’ Slider said. ‘There were lots of houses within a few yards of where she was. She could have knocked on any door for help.’
‘At that time of night? Everyone would have been fast asleep.’
‘But there was no report of any disturbance or shouting or anything like that. I think it happened very quickly, and she wouldn’t have had time to telephone you, even if she’d had her mobile with her.’ It was a perilous way to try to console a father: there wasn’t much comfort in it whichever way you sliced it. He didn’t want Wilding to think too deeply about what he had just said, and went on, ‘I’d like you to put the mobile into a bag – an ordinary freezer bag will be fine – and we’ll collect it. And don’t handle if, if you’ll be so kind. Pick it up by the end of the aerial stalk and drop it into the bag.’
‘You’re thinking of fingerprints? But – what fingerprints can there be on it, if she didn’t have it with her?’
‘It’s a very long shot, of course, but it may have been someone she knew and they may have touched it at some point recently. We have to go through the routines.’
‘I see,’ he said dully. ‘Of course, I touched it when I took it out of the drawer.’
‘I understand. I’ll send someone round to fetch it, and we’ll be able to get a record of her calls, at any rate. We’ll know who she was in the habit of calling.’
‘Very well,’ he said, resignedly. ‘I expect it will just be her school friends. And this number here. It won’t tell you anything.’
‘We’re doing all we can,’ Slider said kindly, answering the thought behind the words.
Atherton took the news with more interest than Slider had shown. ‘Wait, wait, this could be something,’ he said. ‘What girl ever goes out without her mobile? They’re surgically wedded to them. The only way to stop a teenager texting her pals is to prise the phone from her cold, dead fingers.’
Slider winced. ‘A happy turn of phrase. I agree with you in general, but even a teenage girl can be absent-minded on occasion. She just forgot it, that’s all.’
‘That’s what I’m saying, she wouldn’t have. Never in a thousand years. She’d have put it into her handbag as automatically as her door keys.’
‘Well on this occasion she didn’t. Why are you getting so excited?’
‘Suppose the murderer brought it away from the scene with him?’
‘You want Wilding to be the murderer?’
‘I don’t want him to be. But it usually is the victim’s nearest and dearest, and he was hugely controlling of her. Maybe he followed her, discovered what she was up to, sex-and-smut wise, had a violent row and strangled her.’
‘With tights he just happened to have brought with him.’
‘He may have found out beforehand that she wasn’t the little angel he had always believed in, and went out to execute her, to save her soul from worse to come. There would have been plenty of tights in the house, his wife’s and his daughter’s. Look,’ he said to Slider’s rejecting expression, ‘we know he’s a religious nut—’