Blind Fury (14 page)

By the time Anna left Katia’s studio with the suitcase, it was nine-thirty. She decided she would go home and check the suitcase in at the station the following morning.

Anna showered and made herself a sandwich before she opened the suitcase. She laid it on her bed, and as she removed each item, she noted it down: two pairs of shoes, two skirts, sweaters, and T-shirts with some underwear. There was nothing else, no passport or notebooks or makeup. The clothes were all worn but clean and well pressed. Anna knew about the haversack or backpack but not the overnight bag. Could that have meant Estelle was leaving London to visit the person Katia said she knew in Manchester?

She had hoped that the itemized bill for the mobile might be of use, especially if there had been one to Manchester. However, Katia had given her the names of all the calls, and these also included ones made by Estelle to her, and she said there were no other numbers listed for which she didn’t know the recipient. Estelle had given the phone back to Katia a month ago. Frustrated and tired, Anna repacked the suitcase and went to bed.

The next morning, Anna dragged the case into the station, and there were plenty of jokes about her filling up the property locker, as every item she had brought in had to be recorded in the exhibits book and bagged. She made out her report of the meeting with Katia and added the notes to the incident board. Then she sat at her desk, listed the Polish embassy, the Walton Street address, and the Earl’s Court studio. She was wondering why Estelle had bought from a charity shop in New Malden, a good distance from where she’d worked and lived. She had also tried to pay with a fifty-pound note, and this would have been after she left the employment of Mrs. Henderson. Anna tapped her teeth with her Biro, flicking through all her notes, sensing that something didn’t add up. She put in a call to Katia. There was no reply for such a long time that Anna was about to give up when Katia answered, the clatter of crockery and the hiss of a coffee machine audible in the background.

“I’m so sorry to disturb you, Katia, it’s DI Anna Travis. I just wanted to ask you if you knew anyone living in New Malden?”

“New Malden?” Katia repeated slowly.

“Yes. We know Estelle bought something from a charity shop there, and it’s quite a way from Earl’s Court.”

“I have never been to this New Malden,” Katia growled.

“Do you know anyone living there?”

“No. I do not know where it is.”

“It’s not far from Kingston, Wimbledon, Raynes Park—”

“No. I don’t know any of these places.”

Anna sighed and thanked Katia, who yawned as she hung up. It was catching; Anna yawned as she closed her notebook. She next rang Mrs. Henderson, apologizing for any inconvenience and saying she wondered if there had been any calls made by Estelle on her boss’s landline. Mrs. Henderson said that she doubted it, as she made a point of asking anyone employed at the house not to use the private phone. She did agree, however, to check her phone bill.

“Could you keep a particular lookout for any calls to New Malden or Manchester?” Anna asked. She doubted that Mrs. Henderson would get back to her, but at least she felt she had covered everything possible in trying to ascertain Estelle’s whereabouts before she was murdered.

She decided to go to the property locker to retrieve the English books found in Estelle’s rucksack, in the hope that they might reveal whether Estelle was going to any particular evening classes to study English. However, none of the books had any college listed. It was yet another dead end.

Shortly after lunch, Barbara took a call from a man by the name of Mikhail Petrovich. He asked to speak to Anna Travis.

“Did he say what it’s about?” Anna asked.

“No. Just wanted to speak to you.”

“Put him through, please.” Anna picked up her desk phone. “Anna Travis speaking. How can I help you, Mr. Petrovich?”

“It’s about Estelle. I knew her, and I’ve been told she’s dead. I am very sorry and I want to help you.”

Anna switched on the tape to record the call. The man did seem to be genuinely distressed. He said he was a waiter working at a small hotel on Kingston Hill in Surrey. Anna became tense listening to him as he explained that he knew Estelle because she lived with his girlfriend in Earl’s Court.

“Your girlfriend is Katia Rieika?”

“Yes. Estelle used to live in her place, that is how I know her.”

“Mr. Petrovich, I would really like to talk to you in person. Can I come and see you?”

Anna arranged to meet him at the hotel, but in the car park, as he didn’t want the management to think he was in any kind of trouble.

Barolli looked over as Anna grabbed her briefcase. “Where you off to?” he asked.

“Kingston Hill. Got someone who says he knew Estelle.”

“You want me to go with you?”

“No, it shouldn’t take long.”

•  •  •

Mikhail Petrovich was a handsome young man with slicked-back black hair. He was waiting in the small car park as Anna drew up in her Mini and wound down the window to announce herself. He got in to sit beside her.

“I thought you would maybe come in a police car,” he said.

“No, this is my own vehicle.”

“Very nice. I like this make of car, but I would have it convertible.”

“Do you mind if I tape this conversation?”

“No, I don’t mind, just so long as Katia doesn’t know about me calling you, because she is very jealous. That’s why she kicked out Estelle, because she knew I found her attractive. Like I said, I was quite fond of her.”

Mikail told Anna that he had been with Katia when she received Anna’s call that morning. He had not started his shift until noon, so he went into the café to help Katia open up. He said she didn’t know Kingston or any of the other places, but he did, as he lived at the hotel he worked in. He stayed with Katia on his days off. Petrovich was an undermanager and very proud of it. He had worked in England for seven years and had been dating Katia for almost eighteen months. He had met Estelle when she began renting the studio, and he had felt sorry for her.

“She had no immediate family, except an uncle who she wanted to meet up with, as she had never known him. She had little money and hated working for Mrs. Henderson, as she was so rude to her.”

“Did she contact this uncle?”

“I don’t know, but in secret we met, and she was upset because she said she didn’t have good clothes, so I took her to the charity shop in New Malden, also two more in Wimbledon, to buy things. They have nice secondhand clothes, expensive things going real cheap. I wait for her outside, have a cigarette.”

“Did you pay for the things?”

“Yes, I give her some money.”

“Was it a fifty-pound note?”

“Yes. I got my wages and give her fifty quid. The lady not want that big note, so I bought cigarettes to get change. Estelle keep the rest.”

Anna swiveled around to have a better look at him. “That’s a lot of money, and yet you say she was just a friend?”

“Yes, I say that, and I mean that. We didn’t do sex, she was not that type of girl—she was proper and innocent and I liked her. She was desperate, and all I wanted was to help her, but without Katia knowing, or she would go ballistic, very jealous. Nothing happened between me and Estelle, but I will be honest, I hoped when she came back, we would get to know each other better.” Anna showed him the photograph, and he nodded. “Yes, that is Estelle.”

He turned away to stare out the window before he brought himself to ask what had happened to her. Anna gave him only a few details, adding that perhaps Estelle was intending to go to Manchester. She also asked if Estelle was the type of girl who would thumb a lift.

“Maybe. You see, I couldn’t give her any more cash, and Katia had kicked her out of the studio because she owed rent, so she had no money for a ticket.”

“Would she have had sex for money?”

He sucked in his breath and his face tightened. “
No.
I tell you, she was a good girl, but with trouble—no job, no money, and that is why I tried to help her.”

“She was here illegally, wasn’t she?”

He hesitated, then admitted that she was not registered to work in the UK, but she wanted to make an application and hoped that her uncle would help her. He looked at his watch. “I have to go back to work.”

Anna asked when was the last time he had seen Estelle, and he recalled that it was the same day she had bought the new jacket for her trip to Manchester.

“So she was definitely going to travel from London to Manchester?”

“Yes. Her uncle was the only person she believed could get her the correct papers. Did she get there? Was she killed in Manchester?”

“No, she never made it there.”

He turned to look at Anna. His dark eyes were filled with tears, and he clenched his hands. “Money. I was saving for a car, so I did not give her any more when she needed it. Now she’s dead, and I will have to live with that. I really liked her.”

Anna watched him walking back to the hotel reception, his head bent. He took out a handkerchief, and she knew he was crying. She was about to drive away when Mrs. Henderson rang. She did have a call registered from her landline to Manchester, and four further ones to mobile numbers she did not recognize. At last the day was beginning to be a productive one. Anna fed the numbers back to the incident room and asked for the call to Manchester to be a priority. This would begin to pinpoint whether or not Estelle was heading there on the day she died—or was on her way back.

By the time Anna returned to the station, they had located Andre Dubcek. He was devastated to be told that his niece had been murdered, as he had expected her to contact him when she arrived in Manchester. He agreed to come down to London but couldn’t do so for a couple of days, as he had a business to run. Barolli had spoken to him and didn’t think they would gain much from interviewing him, as he had never met Estelle. He had asked a lot of questions about when it had happened and how she had been killed, and he appeared to be greatly shocked.

The fact that he had not contacted them after either the newspaper reports or the television crime shows was simply because he had no idea what she looked like; in fact, he said he had been surprised when she contacted him. Andre was married to a local girl from Chorlton, had three children, and ran a small bakery. He told them that Estelle was twenty-two years old.

It felt to everyone that they had made a breakthrough simply by being able to identify their victim. But it still left one more to go, and they were no closer to producing a suspect. Estelle’s photograph now had her name beneath it, alongside the pictures of Margaret Potts and Jane Doe.

Anna left the station at seven, satisfied that she had had a productive day, if not one that helped solve the women’s murders. She was in the car park when Langton drove in and did his usual erratic parking job. She waited by her Mini as he headed toward her.

“You’ve got some developments today?” he said.

Anna explained quickly how she had been able to identify Estelle and that they had contacted a relative.

“Good work, but we’re still almost at square one. Bloody unbelievable, isn’t it? She’s Polish?”

“She was, yes. Seems to have been quite an innocent.”

“Couldn’t be that innocent. Comes over here, no job prospects and an uncle who’s never met her. Do we know her age?”

“Twenty-two.”

He sighed and then gave Anna a pat on her shoulder. “Good work, though, Travis. Let’s hope tomorrow we go one better. This case is growing cold on us.”

Anna’s newfound relaxed interaction with Langton felt a little strained, as if he was going out of his way to be pleasant to her. Perhaps he was.

By the time she arrived home, she didn’t know why she felt so depressed. There were a few eggs in the fridge and little else, as her grocery list was still stuck to the fridge door. There was a half bottle of red wine on the kitchen worktop, however. Anna poured herself a glass and couldn’t be bothered to eat anything. She carried the glass into the sitting room and switched on the TV, propping her feet up on the coffee table.

She couldn’t lift the depression; she knew she was really not looking after herself. She didn’t exercise, she didn’t cook decent meals, and she was eating mostly fry-ups in the station canteen. She had made no new friends, and her whole existence was focused on work. She was also drinking at least half a bottle of wine a night, despite trying to keep it to one and a half glasses. She sometimes drank more and sank into bed cushioned by the alcohol to help her sleep.

Now, unable to concentrate on the TV, she drained the glass and returned to the kitchen to get a refill and then headed into her bedroom. She took a shower and, wrapped in a bath towel, stared at herself in the long wardrobe mirror. Sipping the wine, she let the towel drop to really look at herself. She’d put on weight, and her hair needed a trim. In fact, her face looked pasty, and doing a slow turn, she could see that her waist was much wider than usual, as were her thighs. Flabby, she felt flabby: unfit and ugly. She took a few more sips of wine as she got into her nightdress. It had been bought for warmth and comfort, and that was exactly what it looked like.

She flopped down on the bed. Tomorrow she would join a gym, and she would also go on a diet, start to eat more healthy food, and cut out the wine. Sleepily, she drained the glass, but just as she was about to go and clean her teeth, her phone rang.

“Hello, Anna.”

She knew who it was immediately and wanted to replace the receiver at once.

“You still awake?”

She remained silent, furious that Cameron Welsh had obtained her private phone number.

“Anna?”

“Mr. Welsh, you have no right to call me at my home. I have nothing to say to you.”

“Take the number out of the phone book, then.”

“Good night, Mr. Welsh.”

“Don’t you want to hear why I’ve called you?”

“No, I don’t. Please do not call me again.”

“Isn’t that rather a childish attitude to take, Anna?”

She was about to slam down the phone when he added, “I have more information.”