Blood Sinister by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles Page B

up. Illuminated buses glidedpast like mobile fish tanks; the wet road hissed under commuter tyres, so that, with your eyes closed and a certain amount of good will, you could imagine you were on the piste. Prentiss’s office was in a new block in Kensington Church Street – prime real estate these days, especially as it had a car park. Somewhere to leave a car in central London was becoming more valuable than somewhere to lay your weary head. The time would come when it would be cheaper to hire someone to drive your car round and round all day and jump in when it passed you.
    When they were finally ushered into Prentiss’s large and expensively furnished room, he was standing behind his desk and talking on the phone while he looked out of the large window onto the ribbon of lights, gold and ruby, that wound down to Ken High Street and up to Notting Hill. He gestured them to seats while continuing with his conversation; behaviour that Slider, perhaps unfairly, couldn’t help feeling was an executive ploy for impressing them with how busy and important he was.
    At last Prentiss slammed the phone down in its cradle and said, ‘Sorry about that, gentlemen. What can I do for you?’ He didn’t sit down, suggesting that whatever they wanted, it wouldn’t take him very long to sort it out and be rid of them.
    He was a tall man in his fifties, and broad under his pale grey suit, which even Slider could tell was fashionable and expensive. He was not fat, but heavily built and with a certain softness around the jowls and thickness in the lines of his face that was not unattractive, given his age, merely adding to his authority. His beautifully cut hair was fair, turning grey, and brushed back all round to give him a leonine look, which went with his straight, broad nose and wide, lazy hazel eyes. Altogether he seemed a commanding and handsome man, the sort women would fall for badly. A man who could kill? Perhaps, Slider thought, if the reason and circumstances were right. He looked as though he would be single-minded in pursuit of his own ends; and whatever he did, he would prove a formidable opponent. Or at least – Slider amended to himself, wondering if there wasn’t a trace of self-indulgence about the mouth and the softness – he’d always make you think he was.
    Slider introduced himself and Atherton, and proffered his ID, which Prentiss waved away magnanimously. ‘I’d like to speak to you about Phoebe Agnew,’ he said.
    The gaze sharpened. ‘What about her?’
    ‘You are a friend of hers, I understand.’
    ‘Phoebe and I are very old friends,’ he said, a faint frown developing between his brows. ‘There’s no secret about that. I’ve known her since college days. We’ve worked on many a fund-raiser together. Why do you ask?’
    Defensive, thought Slider. ‘Would you mind telling me when you saw her last?’
    ‘I certainly would,’ Prentiss said.
    Slider raised his eyebrows in his mildest way. ‘You have some reason for not telling me?’
    ‘I am not going to answer any of your questions until you tell me why you’re asking,’ Prentiss said impatiently. ‘So either come out with it, or I shall have to ask you to leave. I’m a busy man.’
    ‘You haven’t heard, then’, said Slider, ‘that Miss Agnew is dead?’
    Prentiss didn’t say anything, but he stared at Slider as if looking alone would suck information out of him.
    ‘I’ll take that as a “no”,’ Slider said.
    ‘Dead?’ Prentiss managed at last.
    ‘Murdered,’ said Slider.
    Slowly Prentiss felt behind him and lowered himself into the high-backed leather executive chair. ‘You can’t be serious.’
    Genuine shock, or an act? Poke him and see. ‘No, I go round telling people things like that just to see how they react,’ Slider said.
    That roused Prentiss. ‘What the devil do you mean by coming in here with that attitude? Are you trying to be funny? Do you think this is a game?’
    Slider faced him down. ‘I most certainly