Game Over by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles Page B

interesting seeing government from the inside, and quite exciting to be close to the seat of power. But he never thought much of Sid Andrew, and he got frustrated at the way things were done.’
    ‘Specifically?’
    ‘Oh, I don’t know really. He didn’t go into detail with me. I think he just felt too many things were happening behind closed doors. He was never a great one for conspiracy,’ she said with a wry smile.
    ‘Why did he choose the DTI?’
    ‘He didn’t – they chose him. He’d had a lot of experience covering industrial relations and disputes before he became a foreign correspondent, so I suppose they thought he’d speak their language. But mostly I think they just wanted to have the kudos of getting Ed Stonax of the BBC on to their books. I think he felt he was pretty under-used.’
    She lapsed into silence and as he had to concentrate just then on the traffic there was a silence between them. When he could look again, he saw her staring at her hands, her head bowed. It was not a happy posture.
    ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘do you mind talking about him?’
    She roused herself from her reverie. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Talking about him helps me stop thinking about what’s happened. I can’t take it in, except in tiny flashes, and then it hurts too much. I just want to see him and talk to him about it, because he always had the best ideas about everything. Is that stupid? To want to talk to someone about who murdered them?’
    ‘Who would know better?’ said Atherton.
    She screwed up her eyes in pain. ‘I hate that word. Murdered. I can’t take it. Not Dad! Not him!’
    He reached across and touched her hand and hers folded quickly round his and hung on, as though for salvation. ‘We’ll be there soon. It’s the next turning. Do you want to go off and do other things? You’ve got a key for the house so you can come and go as you like.’
    She squeezed his hand and then drew hers back. ‘I haven’t got anything else to do,’ she said. ‘And I want to help. I want to come in with you.’
    ‘All right, then,’ Atherton said, turning into Stanlake Road.
    Slider looked surprised. ‘What’s come over you?’
    ‘I think you ought to know the answer to that, seeing you started with Joanna when she was a witness in the Austin case.’
    ‘And as I remember you thoroughly disapproved.’
    ‘And you said she wasn’t a material witness, which she wasn’t, only happened to know the deceased. Emily wasn’t even in the country. She’s just the victim’s daughter.’
    ‘All the same, at a moment when she’s in emotional turmoil—’
    ‘This is a moral objection, then, not a police procedural one?’ Atherton asked with his head up.
    ‘It’s not like you,’ Slider said.
    ‘No, it isn’t. And for the record, she came on to me. And I’ve no intention of letting her down. I’m extremely serious about her.’
    Slider surveyed his friend’s face and was baffled. Atherton was a serial womaniser and he was so attractive to the opposite sex he had to fight them off with a plank. But to be bedding a woman when she’d only found out that day that her father had been murdered . . . When Emily Stonax was back in her right mind, she might well bring a complaint, and though Atherton hadn’t broken any specific rule it could be viewed as misconduct. As to including her in the investigation – would it make her more or less likely to want to sue if she saw the way the department operated? On the other hand, she might have useful insights to share. Joanna had been extremely helpful during the Austin case.
    ‘She can’t sit in on our meetings,’ he said at last. ‘But you can pass things on to her unless I specifically say you can’t. You’ll have to use your judgement about how much you want to tell her.’
    ‘She wants to help. She wants to be useful.’
    ‘Well, I expect she will be,’ Slider said.
    ‘Can’t we give her something to do? She says she’s very good at research. She