‘All right, Plod,’ he almost snarled, ‘I’m done with you. I’m done playing with you.’
‘Whoever asked you to?’ Slider retorted, too wearily angry himself with the whole thing to be much afraid. ‘Starting to repeat your effects, aren’t you?’
‘Don’t interrupt me! You’ve been warned to keep your nose out, and you won’t listen to warnings, so I’m going to have to put you out of the game. Permanently.’
‘If it means I don’t have to go on listening to you quoting from bad gangster movies any more—’
‘Oh, you think you’re quite the hero, don’t you?’ Bates sneered. ‘Well, the next time you hear from me will be the last, all right. I’m going to get you – and then I’m going to get that woman of yours. And in the split second when you realise you’re about to die, which is all you’ll have, I hope you’ll think of her and remember that it’s you who’ve condemned her to death.’
Slider was cold to the pit of his stomach at this direct threat to Joanna, but there was only one way to talk to people like Bates, who got pleasure from intimidation. ‘Oh, sod off,’ he said, and put the phone down.
What had made him change, he wondered, as he sat staring at the telephone, squatting on his desk like a malevolent toad. Something had put the wind up Bates. Was it his visit to Solder Jack? Had Bates had him followed, seen him go in, guessed what it was about? He was intelligent enough to put two and two together; and if that was it, it rather confirmed Jack’s diagnosis, that it was Bates who made the device for the door at Valancy House. If Tyler was behind the murder, it would be natural for him to consult his electronics-expert friend. Was Bates afraid that Slider was closing in on him? He did so hope that Bates was afraid.
Maybe it was Bates himself who had followed him. Bates on the motorbike, who had twice tried to kill him. It would explain how he had called the moment Slider got back to his desk – following him back to the station and giving him just enough time to get upstairs. He felt a sort of perverse relief at the thought, because if Bates was actively following him, he couldn’t also be following Joanna.
He checked the time. She’d have finished her rehearsal by now. He rang her mobile number. It rang too long before she answered it.
‘You had me worried,’ he said.
‘Sorry, I’m driving. I had to pull to the side of the road in the approved manner before I could pick you up. Trouble with dating a cop.’
‘I’ll have to get you a hands-free set.’
‘They’ll be banning those, too, soon. Talking is distracting. What’s the matter?’
‘How do you know something’s the matter?’
‘I can tell from the quality of your silence.’
‘I just had another comedy phone call from The Needle.’
‘Oh. The usual? Don’t be alarmed – be very afraid?’
‘That sort of thing.’
‘Any further along with catching him?’ she asked in a studiously calm voice.
‘I wish I could say yes. He must have a safe house somewhere local, but where?’
‘I’m glad you’re going to a safe house tonight, anyway.’
‘Ditto. You’ve got a hotel room?’
‘Yes, and Sue’s staying on with me, which is noble because she’d sooner go straight home. Like all of us.’
‘Offer to pay for her, and I’ll give you the money.’
‘It’s not costing her anything. You pay for the room in these places,’ Joanna pointed out. ‘But I will stand her a meal, if she’ll let me.’
‘Good. Well, be careful. I don’t think anyone’s watching you, but keep an eye out. And I’ll see you tomorrow.’
‘Yes, thank goodness. We miss you. Little Derek keeps asking after you.’
‘How?’
‘In Morse code. With his feet.’
‘Come to the station tomorrow when you get back. Don’t go to the house.’
‘Are we ever going to be able to go home?’ she asked, and sounded upset.
‘Of course we are. As Mr Porson says, it’s a long road that has no turnstile, and every dog has his Daimler.’
‘I wish I’d thought of that.’
‘I can’t think of it now.’
Slider left his car in the yard and let Atherton drive him home, with Emily following in her hire car. He was dog-tired, and the headache that had been hovering like a thunderstorm over the hills all day seemed to be settling in for the night. He needed an early one.
‘Do you mind if we don’t talk about the case tonight?’ Slider said, breaking the silence as Atherton pulled into his road and started looking for a parking space. ‘I need a break from thinking.’
‘Good idea. The unbent bow, and all that sort of thing. You look pretty terrible, s’matter of fact.’
‘I couldn’t look terribler than I feel.’
‘I think we should have a large drink followed by a superb meal and listen to a bit of soothing music. Luckily, I nipped out and bought some stuff this afternoon.’ He pulled up parallel to the car in front of a parking space, and before he could change gear, Emily nipped into it forwards. Slider saw in the wing mirror on his side her grin through the windshield. Atherton made a threatening gesture in his rear-view and drove on. ‘It’s good to see her show a bit of spirit. I keep worrying that she’s going to have a relapse and sink into gloom and guilt.’
‘It will probably happen when the case is closed,’ Slider said. ‘Then it’ll all come home to her.’
‘And then what will happen to me?’ Atherton said. ‘She might hate me.’
‘There’s always that,’ Slider said.
Atherton glanced at him. ‘A comforting reassurance would have been nice.’
‘You could always go back to Sue.’
‘No, once the trust has gone out of a relationship, it’s no fun lying to them. Ah, here’s a space. And not even in the next county.’
Atherton’s arms being full of groceries, he gave Emily the key and she opened the door and went in first, to receive two half-grown cats full in the chest. They pronged their way up on to her shoulders, purring like JCBs.
‘They’ve really taken to you,’ Slider observed, easing in behind her.
‘I’m a good twiddler,’ she said.
Slider was too tired to ask what she meant, and let that one go.
Atherton kicked the door closed behind him. ‘Can you make us all a drink while I unload this lot?’ he asked her.
‘Of course. Get thee to thy kitchen, scullion. Bill – is it all right if I call you Bill? Why don’t you sit down, because you look as if you’re about to fall down?’
Blessedly soon he was in the fireside chair, a large gin and tonic in his hand, and one of the cats – he had no idea which one – on his lap. Emily put on a Brahms’ serenade, one of Slider’s favourite pieces, and sat down on the floor, as Joanna had liked to do before she got too big, with a cat on her shoulder, to talk to him. Her interview skills were soon apparent, as she got him talking about himself, despite his tiredness and his natural reticence; and at the very moment when he noticed he was talking about himself, she changed the subject with graceful ease to architecture, which he must have mentioned in passing was an interest of his.
‘When you say architecture, I suppose you mean ancient rather than modern?’ she invited.
‘Most modern architecture seems to me to be a mixture of ambition, distraction, uglification and derision,’ he said. ‘But there are honourable exceptions. I think the Gherkin is a wonderful design, for instance. But I wonder whether even a really good joke will go on being funny century after century, whereas if you look at the great churches—’
‘Is that where your real interest lies?’
‘I’m not exclusive. But something like Salisbury or Durham – mankind at its absolute best.’