‘And then there’s Michael Carmichael,’ Slider said. ‘He denied knowing Zellah, then said he hadn’t seen her for two months. Why? We know he was with her that evening and that they had a row, after which she walked off. And local residents in the Old Oak Common area said they heard a motorbike roaring round late that night. It could have been Carmichael looking for Zellah to finish the row, having fetched his bike and gone after her round by road. He finds her, they go at it again, and he ends up strangling her, the only way to shut her up.’
The eyebrows huddled even closer together. ‘That’s plausible. But it would have to be a really serious row to go that far. And what about the tights? Where would he get those?’
‘The tights are always a problem,’ Slider said.
‘Not with Ronnie Oates,’ Porson said. ‘If we assume he went out looking for his own brand of fun and took them with him.’
‘But he’s never done that before.’
‘He’s never had to. Prozzies have tights to hand.’
‘Then why would he assume this time he’d need to take his own?’
‘I don’t know,’ Porson sighed. He walked over to the window, scratching gently at his scalp as if he hoped to stimulate thought within. ‘Damn it, Slider, now we’ve got three suspects! Normally you’d be grateful for one, but now we’ve got a plethora.’
Slider was so startled the Syrup had used the right word in the right context, and pronounced it correctly, that he couldn’t immediately assemble an answer.
‘Wilding’s got the best motive,’ Porson went on. ‘Righteous rage, possessiveness, thwarted love and all that sort of thing. But Carmichael is young and we’ve been told he’s got a temper, and they were argy-bargy-ing. On the other hand, Oates doesn’t need a motive. She’s his random victim. And he’s got previous. All right, he’s not murdered before, but it’s the same method. You can’t teach an old leopard new spots.’
Slider relaxed, back in the comfort zone.
‘I don’t know,’ Porson concluded unhappily. ‘You’ll have to go after all three of ’em until something breaks. If it was Wilding, he’ll have tried to cover his tracks. But the criminal always makes one carnal error. With Carmichael it’ll be more a matter of breaking him down and catching him out. As for Oates—’
Porson’s door was almost always open, and at that moment Hollis appeared in the doorway and tapped politely to attract their attention. He looked tired, and his tie had been loosened and pulled awry, while his impossible hair was at its liveliest, suggesting a certain degree of frustrated finger-raking had recently taken place.
‘They told me you were here, guv,’ he said to Slider, but his eyes moved on to Porson. ‘Ronnie Oates has confessed.’
Porson looked as if he’d been thrown a lifeline. ‘That’s more like it. Confession is as confession does. I don’t like it when they don’t cough. What sort of state’s he in?’
‘He’s fine, sir,’ Hollis said. ‘Quite cheerful. Thinks himself no end of a buck, if you want my opinion.’
‘Good. We don’t want the defence claiming we beat it out of him.’
‘No, sir. He’s all right. Better than me.’
Porson looked at his watch. ‘Has he had anything to eat?’
‘Not since breakfast, sir, though he’s had several cups of tea.’
‘All right. This is what we’ll do. Read him his rights, get him a solicitor, and make sure he gets a good lunch before the brief arrives. Whatever he likes best. Keep him in a good mood. Then get him to do it again on tape with the solicitor present. That way there’s no argument.’ He pulled out his handkerchief and mopped his brow and round his neck. Behind him the window was open, but not a breath of air came through, and the sky was blankly grey. ‘Meanwhile, follow everything up, get everything corrobolated, leave no grindstone unturned. If we’re going to stand Ronnie Oates up against the bleeding hearts brigade, we need a cast-iron case, no loose nuts.’ He put his handkerchief away. ‘Too damned hot today. Wouldn’t be surprised if it rained later. Oates is in the coolest place – can’t accuse us of cruelty. Well,’ he concluded in a bark, ‘what are you standing there for? Get on with it!’
Slider turned away. He wouldn’t be surprised if there wasn’t a storm later, and not only meteorologically. This case was like a typical British summer, he thought. Three hot days and a thunderstorm – with a period of unease in between.
‘I’m going to leave Oates to you,’ he said to Hollis as they walked down the corridor. ‘Can you manage that and office manager?’
‘Yes, guv,’ Hollis said, with a question naked in his face.
‘I’m going to interview our friend Carmichael,’ Slider said. ‘As the Old Man says, we don’t want any loose ends.’
‘Curiosity,’ said Hollis gravely, ‘got the early cat the cream.’
THIRTEEN
Another Day, Another Dealer
Running was Carmichael’s undoing. DI Phil Warzynski at Notting Hill accepted it, when Slider phoned him, as proof of villainy, and with his good word in support the duty muppet coughed up a warrant to search the flat. Hart and McLaren came back with cheering news. They had found things of interest.
‘It weren’t a bad pad,’ Hart commented. ‘Clean, done up nice. I dunno if he spends much time there, though. There wasn’t many clothes, no telly, just a sound system and some CDs. No food to speak of in the fridge, just the empties of a six-pack and a Chinese takeaway in the bin. He must have gone out last night and took it back in with him.’ She rolled her eyes slightly to show what she thought of the other team allowing him past. ‘Anyway, I couldn’t picture him sitting around there of an evening. It was more like a drop-in.’
‘Expensive drop-in,’ McLaren said. ‘Anywhere decent round there costs a bomb.’
‘But we reckon he was making well enough to afford it,’ Hart went on. ‘I knew we’d find something as soon as he started talking about “planting” stuff. They always say that, the dipsticks. And right away we found a whole lot of little squares of white paper in one cupboard, and a couple of packets of white powder in another.’ She grinned. ‘He’d put ’em in two tins marked rice and flour. I reckon he’s got a sense of humour.’
‘But they weren’t rice and flour?’ Slider prompted gently.
‘Kensington an’ Chelsea,’ Hart said.
‘Calvin Klein,’ McLaren put in, not wanting to be left out of the hip-talk stakes.
K&C, or CK, was ketamine and cocaine, the latest drug of choice for young people wanting to get off their faces. Ket, the veterinary tranquiliser, was cheaper than charlie, and while the high didn’t last as long, there was no paranoid come-down as with cocaine. It was more like being hilarious drunk for a couple of hours, leaving you with nothing worse than a mild hangover. At the lower end of the social scale, the users were abandoning coke for financial reasons along with high-price cocktail bars and nightclubs, and taking ket with friends at home, which was a lot less trouble for everyone (including the police). The better-off kids were mixing the two, hence the ‘Royal Borough’ nickname for the combination.
‘So, our little chum is at the cutting edge of juvenile stupidity, is he?’ Slider said. ‘How much did you find?’
‘About fifty grams of charlie and twenty-five of K,’ Hart said. ‘Plus, like I said, the papers for making the wraps.’
‘So we could make dealing stick all right?’
‘Yes, guv, and there was something else,’ McLaren added eagerly. ‘In the bathroom there was a hairbrush on the shelf in front of the mirror, and there were some long blonde hairs in it, along with the black.’