Free Killing Time by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles Page A

called the act, anyway?’ Slider shook his head.
‘A Pair o’ Sheepskin Slippers.’
He gave a snort of mixed disgust and amusement.
    ‘So how come it wasn’t all over the papers?’
    ‘The Pomona’s owned by Billy Yates, and he didn’t want the publicity any more than the animal libbers.’
    ‘Ah, of course,’ said Slider, understanding. Billy Yates was a local businessman with his fingers in almost every pie, and an inordinate influence in the local community.
    ‘He squashed the locals, and they didn’t dare syndicate. There was a paragraph in Monday’s
Evening Standard,
but it didn’t have the interesting details, so nobody else picked it up. Yates was fed up, mind you, having to take off the act, but he couldn’t have his
artistes
shagging a green sheep, now could he? O’ carse, he’d a’ had to take it off anyway, One o’ the slippers in question was your man Jay Paloma.’
    ‘Was it indeed?’
    ‘Didn’t you know that? I thought that was why you was asking.’ He looked at Slider keenly. ‘You think it was some nutter on a clean-up campaign?’
    ‘I’m not sure. Paloma was some bigwig’s rent boy, according to his flatmate. He could have been wiped for security reasons.’
    ‘Or jealousy. You know what these types are like – incontinent as the moon.’ Fergus screwed up his greasy bag and potted it neatly in the bin. ‘How’s Little Boy Blue gettin’ on?’ This was his nickname for Atherton. It was not unaffectionate.
    ‘I rang yesterday. They said the usual things.’ He tried to be positive. ‘It’s bound to be a long job. It was a massive wound.’
    ‘It shouldn’t a happened to a bloke like him,’ Fergus said. ‘But then, I never thought he should be a copper. Restaurant critic, maybe. It’s like seein’ a raceharse pull a coal cart.’
    ‘He’s a good detective,’ Slider objected. ‘You’re a Catholic, Fergus. Do you believe prayers are answered?’
    ‘Always,’ Fergus said firmly. He eyed his friend with large sympathy. ‘Sometimes the answer’s “no”.’
    ‘You’re such a comfort,’ Slider complained, and headed for the door.
    Fergus called after him. ‘D’you know what’s headin’ the bill at the Pomona in place o’
Sheepskin Slippers?
It’s that big fat Vera doin’ a strip, all dragged up in Egyptian like Elizabeth Taylor.
Two Ton Carmen
they call it. It’s the last bastion o’ good taste, that place.’
    ‘Oh, you are awake,’ Slider said. ‘The nurses warned me not to disturb you if you were resting.’
    ‘I can rest all day,’ Atherton said.
    ‘How are you feeling?’
    ‘Excremental.’
    Slider studied him from the doorway. ‘You look like the Pompidou Centre.’
    ‘And Honeyman sent a basket of fruit,’ said Atherton, looking at the thing which lurked horribly in a corner, covered in brittle polythene and topped with one of those vast pale mauve bows beloved of florists.
    ‘Honeyman’s an idiot,’ Slider said, fetching a chair to the bedside. ‘Can’t you give it to the nurses?’
    ‘They won’t take it. They keep saying I’ll want it later, when the tubes come out. I keep telling them by then it’ll be pure penicillin.’
    ‘Maybe that’s what they mean. Can I get you anything before I sit down?’
    ‘Yeah. Wet my lips, please.’ There was a container of salinesolution and a crock of baby buds for the purpose. Slider performed the task neatly. ‘You’d make someone a great wife,’ Atherton said, to cover for the variety of emotions it made him feel.
    Slider sat and made himself as comfortable as possible, wondering who they used as a model for these moulded chairs.
    ‘How’s Jo?’ Atherton asked.
    ‘Fine. Busy.’
    ‘And you?’
    ‘Ditto. We had a shout. That’s why I didn’t get in to see you yesterday.’
    ‘You don’t have to come in every day.’
    ‘I do,’ Slider said shortly. Atherton hadn’t the energy to argue with him. He knew Slider blamed himself for the knife wound, because he hadn’t let