Authors: Elena Forbes
14
The glass door of the restaurant swung open and a girl with long dark hair and huge sunglasses strode in. She wore a short white T-shirt-type dress with a wide, hip-hugging belt, and carried a leather satchel slung over one shoulder. The girl came straight up to the bar where Alex was going through the lunch bookings and leaned across the counter. ‘I’m looking for Alex Fleming,’ she said in a husky voice.
He put down his pen. ‘I’m Alex. You must be Anna. I thought you said you were coming earlier.’
‘Sorry. I got held up.’ She smiled and hurriedly held out a small, cool hand, then slid onto a stool opposite. ‘I tried calling your mobile, but there was no answer.’
‘It’s on the blink.’ He had switched it off to avoid any calls from the police.
‘Can we talk now?’
He checked his watch. The first reservation wasn’t for another three quarters of an hour. He glanced quickly through the arch into the restaurant beyond. The tables looked more or less ready, the waiters just adding the finishing touches. ‘I guess I can spare you fifteen minutes, if that’s any good.’
‘Perfect.’ She smiled again and removed her glasses, folding the arms and placing them carefully on the counter in front of her. Without them, she looked older and more confident, less like a young girl who has borrowed her big sister’s clothing. He realised she must be somewhere in her late twenties, early thirties at a push. She was also extraordinarily pretty, although not at all what he would have said was Joe’s type. But perhaps that had changed, like so many other things.
She felt in her satchel and pulled out a small recorder. ‘Do you mind?’
He shook his head.
‘Good. Makes my life easier. I’m crap at taking notes, always miss something.’ She stood the recorder on the counter and pressed play. ‘Ready?’
‘I suppose so. You said you were doing an article on Joe.’
‘That’s right.’ She gave the name of one of the Sunday papers. ‘It started off as a straight interview, but given what’s happened, I wanted to broaden it, put in some background and bring in more of his fabulous book. Which is where you come in. I understand you were at university together.’
He nodded, a little surprised. ‘He mentioned me, then?’
‘Yes. How did you two meet?’
He sighed. His main reason for returning her call had been curiosity, especially after what Maggie had told him. He didn’t really want to talk about Joe at all. He also wondered how much Joe had told her. For someone who so fiercely guarded his privacy, it was surprising that Joe had agreed to talk to her at all, but Alex realised that if he wanted to get anything out of her he would have to appear to be cooperating. He reached down to the small fridge under the counter and pulled out an already open bottle of white wine. He pulled out the stopper. ‘Would you like a drink?’
‘No thanks, but don’t let me stop you. I guess it’s not easy for you to have to talk about Joe, is it?’
‘No.’ He poured himself a glass and took a large sip. For some reason, she made him nervous, as though he was the one under the spotlight. ‘What was the question?’
‘I asked when you and Joe first met.’
‘It was in the very first week. We were both studying English and Drama.’
‘He told me you roomed together.’
‘We were in hall together for the first year, then we shared a flat in the second.’
‘And the final year?’ She cupped her chin in her hand and gazed at him with large grey-blue eyes. Her eyelashes were long and thick and gave her eyes a languid quality. She really was mouth-wateringly lovely and he wondered just how far Joe had got with her – if he had dared. The sleeve of her T-shirt slipped down over her shoulder exposing a large part of her breast.
‘Some friends rented a cottage in the countryside and we moved in with them,’ he said, trying not to stare.
Automatically, she shrugged the sleeve back into place. ‘Where was it?’
‘It was a twenty-minute drive outside Bristol, near Bath.’
‘Like in the book?’
‘A bit like that, yes.’
‘Tell me about it. The place I mean.’
‘Nothing much to tell. Paul, one of our friends, had this uncle who had bought a big, nearly derelict estate. He was a developer and he was going to turn it into a hotel with a golf course and stuff. He wasn’t having much luck with the planners, so he let us have one of the cottages while he was waiting. It was part of the stable block.’
‘Sounds lovely.’
‘It wasn’t. It was a pit, if you really want to know, freezing cold and damp and riddled with mice. I woke up one morning and found one curled up asleep on my pillow.’
She laughed. ‘I’d have liked that. I love mice. It must have been great in the summer, at least.’
He nodded reluctantly, wondering where this was going.
‘So Joe got his inspiration from that place?’
‘Partly.’
‘Did he always want to be a writer?’
Alex shook his head. ‘I was actually quite surprised when he told me he was writing a novel. I mean, he’d never talked about wanting to write, but then I guess he was always reading loads of books and stuff, and the acting and teaching’s all just an extension of the same thing.’
‘It’s a pretty dark book, though, isn’t it?’ Her gaze was intense and he looked away.
‘I suppose so.’
‘It’s never clear if Jonah’s death is an accident or suicide. Was Joe a depressive at all?’
‘Definitely not.’
‘Where did all that come from then? All that guilt, all that angst?’
‘I don’t know. From his imagination, I suppose.’
‘He seemed lonely to me.’
‘I wouldn’t say so,’ he said stubbornly. ‘Didn’t you ask him about it?’
She gave a dismissive little shake of her head. ‘I tried, but he wouldn’t give much away. I thought you, knowing him so well, could give me some perspective.’
‘You’re reading too much into it all. It’s just a story.’
She pursed her lips. ‘Mmm . . . Don’t you think you’re being a bit naive?’
‘Naive?’
‘Yes.’
He stared at her. Even though the air-conditioning was blowing above his head, he felt sweat break out on his top lip. He wiped it away with the back of his hand. ‘How do you mean?’
‘Well, on one level it’s just a story as you say, but there are loads of parallels, aren’t there? Did he base any of the characters on you?’
‘Me?’
‘Yes. Which one of them is you?’
‘It wasn’t like that.’
‘Really?’
‘It’s just a book, for God’s sake.’
‘But the place, the situation—’
‘Obviously Joe used elements for the book but it wasn’t in any way autobiographical.’ He said it as forcefully as he could without raising his voice, aware that one of the waitresses had come into the bar and was busy straightening the few tables and chairs just behind where Anna was seated.
‘I see,’ she said in a tone of disbelief. He wondered if she’d been like this with Joe. According to Maggie they had spent quite a lot of time together. How much had he told her? ‘So the house wasn’t like the house in Indian Summer . . . Is that what you’re saying?’
‘Yes. Now, can we talk about something else?’
‘What’s it called?’ she asked, as if he hadn’t spoken. ‘The place where the house was, I mean. It’d be quite nice to get some pictures of it. If nothing else, it must be a great location, if it’s anything like the one in the book.’
Even though he was avoiding her eye, he could feel that she was watching him. ‘It’s not. I told you his novel wasn’t based on real life. The house in the novel doesn’t exist outside Joe’s imagination and I’m sure if you’d asked him, he’d have told you that too.’ Without thinking, he drained his glass in one and put it down forcefully on the counter between them.
She held up her hands. ‘Take it easy. OK?’
‘I’m fine.’
‘I’m sorry if you’re a bit sensitive about it . . .’
‘I’m not. I just don’t want you getting the wrong idea, that’s all.’
‘OK, I won’t.’ She gave him a disarming smile and leaned back on her stool as though the interrogation was over. ‘Do you know anything about the second book he was writing?’
‘No. We didn’t discuss it.’
‘Are you sure? I mean he finished writing Indian Summer a couple of years ago. He must have told you what he was working on after that?’
‘Look, we’d lost touch. He’d been out of London for quite a while. We only met up again recently.’
‘From what he told me, it was sort of a thriller. The police seem very interested in it, you know.’
‘Really?’ he snapped, wondering if she was trying to wind him up.
‘Don’t you know anything about it at all?’
‘I said no.’
‘Do you think it could have anything to do with Joe’s death?’ She let the question hang.
He met her gaze. ‘What do you mean?’
She shrugged, still smiling. ‘Well, as I said, the police seem very interested in it. Make of it what you want.’
He shook his head stubbornly. ‘I can’t help you. I’m sure you know a lot more about it than I do.’ He wanted to say ‘more about Joe than I do’, but it didn’t seem worth it. From the little he had seen, she would have prised Joe open like an oyster and Joe would have let her. She knew a lot more than she was letting on. But how much? ‘The second book, you say it’s some sort of thriller . . .’
A phone was ringing. She held up her hand in front of his face. ‘One sec.’ Grabbing her BlackBerry out of her bag, she checked the screen, then answered it. ‘Hi, Ted, what’s up? I’m in the middle of interviewing someone . . .’ Her voice tailed off. She was silent for a few moments, listening. He watched her expression change, surprise being the only thing he could read, then much more quietly, the words barely audible over the background music, she said: ‘Jesus. I hear you. Don’t worry, I’ll be there as soon as I can.’ She killed the call and looked up at Alex. ‘Gotta go, sorry.’ He saw excitement now in her eyes.
She rummaged hurriedly in her bag for a card, practically flinging it across the counter at him as she jumped off the stool and looped her bag over her shoulder. ‘Thanks for your help. Would love to speak some more. I’ll call you.’ Before he had a chance to say anything, she picked up her sunglasses and marched out of the restaurant.
As Chang drove out through the gates of St Thomas’s, Donovan slid the passenger seat as far back as it would go and stretched out her legs. It was nice being driven for a change and Chang was a good driver; she could relax and take her eye off the road for a while. She was feeling more awake now than on the journey down to Dorset when, apart from a brief stop for coffee and bacon sandwiches, she had dozed most of the way. She reached down into her rucksack and took out the copy of Logan’s novel, which she had brought with her. There would be no other time to read it in the near future and she didn’t feel in the mood to talk. Anyway, Chang seemed happy listening to some current affairs programme on Radio 4. She skimmed the blurb, then the long list of quotes from various newspapers on the back. At first glance it wasn’t exactly her cup of tea, but at least Logan’s editor had promised a good read. The photograph of Logan on the back caught her eye and she studied it for a minute. He looked relaxed, squinting good-humouredly into the sunlight, a cigarette between his fingers. She thought she recognised the place where it had been taken, on the little bench outside the cottage, to the right of the front door. A perfect spot to sit and smoke a cigarette. She wondered who had taken it, if it had been Ed or someone else. Without further ado, she opened the book and started the first chapter.
She hadn’t been reading long when she heard her phone ringing. She pulled it out of her bag and saw Tartaglia’s name on the screen.
‘We’ve just started back,’ she said, turning down the radio. ‘We found a trunk and a suitcase belonging to Logan at the school but—’
‘Tell Justin to step on it,’ he cut in. ‘I need you both back here asap. There’s been another murder.’
15
Tartaglia watched as the sheeted form of the victim was loaded into the back of a mortuary van. ‘Thanks for the call,’ he said, turning to Arabella Browne.
‘My pleasure, Mark.’ She unzipped her protective suit. ‘Single shot to the head, ligature marks, castrated. Naturally, I thought of you.’
‘I’m touched.’
They were standing by her Volvo estate, in the narrow cobbled street outside the Hammersmith Blades Rowing Club on the northern bank of the Thames. The boathouse was two storeys high, built of blistered white clapboard. The large wooden doors on the ground floor were open and he could see racks of boats inside. A set of steep, rickety-looking stairs led up to a gallery on the first floor, where there was another door and a couple of picture windows dating from the Seventies. The road ran parallel to the Thames and a section had been cordoned off, with the area immediately in front of the boathouse designated as a car park for members of the forensic team. It was already full when he and Minderedes arrived and he had left Minderedes to find a parking space further away.
‘Where was he?’
‘In the clubroom upstairs. He was sitting on the floor behind the bar with his knees bent. Rigor’s well established and we’ve had a job straightening him out.’ Holding tightly onto the side of the car, Browne wriggled awkwardly out of her suit, removed her overshoes and bundled it all into a plastic bag, which she dumped in the boot. With a wheezy, asthmatic cough, she swung the lid closed. ‘Bloody hayfever. Hate this time of year.’
‘If he was castrated, did you – er—’
‘Find his penis in his mouth? His jaw’s locked. I didn’t want to force it open here, so you’ll have to wait until the post mortem. But everything else looks the same to me, if that’s what you’re worried about.’
He nodded, reassured. The specific details of Logan’s injuries had not been released to the press and castrations were rare. With everything taken together, unless it was sheer fluke or a deliberate copycat, it was looking strongly like the crime had the same signature.
‘One other thing,’ Browne said, ambling with him around to the driver’s door. ‘This one’s also wet, or at least his upper body is.’
‘You mean water?’
‘Far as I can tell.’ She got into her car, switched on the ignition and rolled down the window. ‘It’s more obvious than the last one, although maybe he didn’t have time to dry out. He also stinks of urine. I’ll leave you to work out what it all means. See you later.’ She put the car into gear and bumped off slowly down the road towards the cordon.
‘You must be Mark Tartaglia,’ a female voice said just behind him.
He turned to find a slim young woman in a fitted grey trouser suit staring at him. ‘I’m Kate Gerachty. I’m with DCI Grainger’s team. I understand we’re going to be working together on this.’ As well as a northern Irish accent, he picked up a certain sharpness of tone.
‘Yes. I’m Mark.’
She offered a limp hand to shake that was quickly withdrawn. She looked to be somewhere in her mid-thirties, with straight, reddish-blonde hair tied back in a very tight ponytail, not a hair out of place, and a wide, full mouth which would have been attractive if it weren’t for her sour expression. Grainger’s team in Hendon had initially received the call and had been working the crime scene since the early hours of the morning. He knew all the other DIs based at the Peel Centre in Hendon, which was home to the majority of the teams in the Homicide West division, but hadn’t come across Gerachty before. He assumed her arrival had been announced while he was on holiday and wondered if she was new to homicide or had transferred in from another division elsewhere, or possibly from outside the Met.
From the little Steele had told him, it had taken considerable bargaining for him to be allowed in on the case, on spec, at such an early stage. He was curious to know exactly how she had wangled it with Clive Cornish. Steele seemed to have powers of persuasion with Cornish that nobody else had. At least some luck had finally come his way. If it weren’t for Arabella Browne, it might have been a matter of days, if not more, before a possible connection was made, by which time Grainger’s team would have fully owned the case, making things far more difficult for everybody.
‘I’ll just be shadowing your investigation,’ he said with a smile, meeting a pair of chilly blue eyes.
‘We do all the donkeywork, until you prove a link, you mean. Then we hand it all over to you on a plate.’
For the sake of diplomacy, he decided to ignore the comment. ‘This is Nick Minderedes. He’s a DC on my team,’ he said, as Minderedes joined them. ‘He’ll be taking notes while you give us the guided tour. I understand the body was found upstairs.’
‘Right. Let’s get this over and done with, then I can get back to work. Forensics have finished with the clubhouse, so we can take a look up there now.’
She started briskly up the steps to the first floor gallery, Tartaglia and Minderedes following. She was wearing clumpy black shoes that squeaked as she walked, but she had a nice, tight little arse just visible below her short jacket. He caught Minderedes’ eye and shook his head. Minderedes stifled a smile and held up his hands in mock surrender.
‘Do we have an ID?’ Tartaglia asked, as they got to the top.
She turned to face him, back to the door. ‘Paul Nasir Khan, aged thirty-eight according to his driver’s licence. It’s registered to an address in EC2. Our people are over there now.’
‘His wallet was on him?’
‘Yes.’
‘What about his phone?’
‘He had a work BlackBerry, but there’s no sign of it. Maybe he left it somewhere at home or at work.’
‘Or the killer took it,’ he said, thinking of what had happened to Logan’s phone. No doubt Khan’s would turn up in a public place too, another little provocative diversion. He wondered whether to share what he knew with Gerachty, if nothing else to save her time, but he decided to wait and see how the rest of the meeting panned out.
‘It’s backed up on the office network so it doesn’t matter.’
‘Did he have a computer?’
‘A company laptop. It’s at his office and we’re fetching it now.’
‘When you go through his emails, if there’s anything strange or out of the ordinary, let me know.’
She met his gaze. ‘What do you mean by strange?’
‘I’ll let you have a copy of the two emails our victim received and you’ll get the idea. What about next of kin?’
‘There’s a girlfriend or partner in his flat. She hasn’t seen him since he left for work early yesterday morning. He’s a lawyer, apparently.’
‘I’ll need to speak to her.’
She gave a curt nod of acknowledgment and pushed open the door. The room was large and sparsely furnished. It had a barn-like feel, with a high, pitched roof and a floor of varnished pine. Sunshine flooded in through two pairs of tall French windows at the back, overlooking the river. The walls were painted white and decorated with old-fashioned wooden oars and rowing photographs, some of which were sepia-toned and dated back to the early part of the last century. The majority of the photos were more recent and showed men’s and women’s eights on the water at a number of regattas and championships, as well as vic torious team members posing with medals and silver cups.
‘Where was the body found?’
‘Over there behind the bar, I think.’ She waved her hand towards the long, L-shaped bar in the corner.
‘Where exactly?’
‘On the floor, so I’m told. I’ve only just got here myself.’
‘Really? Then you’ve missed the party,’ Tartaglia said, failing to stifle his surprise. The initial priority at a crime scene was always on the forensic investigation, but wherever possible he liked to get a feel for the place with the body in situ before it was disturbed. He wanted to see things as close as he could to the way the murderer had left them. Every little detail was important and, although it would all be captured on camera, in his mind it was no substitute to walking the scene. It generally went against correct forensic procedure but he knew he wasn’t alone in this respect, certainly not among experienced detectives. He guessed that Gerachty was new to homicide.
He strode over to the bar and leaned over it. There was a small patch of congealed blood on the floor in the corner by the wall, with a smear of blood and something sticky-looking on the glass door of one of the under-counter fridges. The space was narrow, which would explain why, if the victim had been put in a sitting position, his legs had been bent. But why had the killer left him that way? The image of Logan sitting on the dusty floor of the crypt with his legs outstretched, flashed through his mind. Was it the same hand? If so, why had the killer hidden the body away behind the bar? Had he been disturbed?
Gerachty stood still in the middle of the room watching his every move, hands in her pockets. ‘Find anything?’
‘I’d like to see the video footage and photos as soon as possible,’ he said, rejoining her.
‘I can let you have copies.’
‘He wasn’t killed here, I understand.’
‘That’s the easy part. No blood to speak of, no bullets, no signs of a struggle.’
‘In reverse order, surely,’ Minderedes chipped in.
She blanked him. ‘He definitely wasn’t killed here or anywhere in the vicinity, that’s for sure.’
‘Any idea how the killer brought the body in?’ Tartaglia asked.
‘Has to be up the stairs at the front. It’s the only way in. The main door was unlocked and one of those back windows was also open, but there’s no way out from there except onto the terrace outside.’
‘What about the alarm?’ He had seen an old alarm box on the wall at the front.
‘There isn’t one – at least not one that’s working.’
‘Who has keys?’
‘Quite a few people, from what I can tell. We’re obviously checking now to see if anyone’s missing their key.’
Minderedes walked over to the main door and swung it to and fro on its hinges for a moment. ‘No sign of it being forced,’ he said. ‘The lock’s nothing special, no problem getting a key copied, and easy to pick as well, if you know what you’re about. Wouldn’t take more than a few seconds.’
‘I’m pretty sure that’s what he’d have done,’ Tartaglia said.
‘You think it’s a waste of time our checking the keyholders?’ Gerachty said sharply.
He shrugged. ‘Look, I’m not here to tell you what to do.’
‘I’m glad that’s clear.’
He sighed. ‘Obviously, you must check every angle. But if it is the same killer, he’s highly organised. He knows what he’s doing, and stealing someone’s key and having it copied is risky, plus it gives us a link back to him. I think it’s much more likely he picked the lock.’
‘If it’s the same killer.’
‘I’m assuming it is.’
‘Well, I’ll be keeping an open mind on that, if it’s all the same to you. And if you’ve got a profile, I’d like to see it.’
‘There’s no profile yet.’ It was the truth, but he could tell from her expression that she didn’t believe him. Too bad. He had no intention of sharing his fragmented, somewhat incoherent thoughts about the Logan case with her. It was not her concern. He was due to meet Angela Harper, the profiler, early that evening for an off-the-record chat. Whatever might come out of their conversation was also for him alone at this stage. Anyway, if Browne was right and the two murders were connected, the new case wouldn’t be Gerachty’s for long.
‘So, what is it exactly that makes you think the two murders may be linked?’ she asked. He could see he had sparked her interest. Against his better judgement, he decided to give her the bare bones. If nothing else, it might soften her attitude a little.
‘Because of what Dr Browne found.’
‘Which is?’
‘Both victims are white, male, almost the same age, and both died from a single shot to the head. Both have pre-mortem ligature marks on their ankles and wrists, both were castrated, both killed elsewhere and their bodies dumped on the floor in a sitting position . . .’ As he ticked the points off with his fingers he watched her face for a reaction, but all he got was a blank stare like that of a bored child in school. If it really was her first homicide, maybe she didn’t appreciate the importance of such parallels. Both bodies were wet, Browne had said, although he didn’t feel the need to mention it to Gerachty, if she hadn’t found out for herself. Nor was he sure what it meant.
‘Appearances can be deceptive,’ she said primly.
He shook his head. ‘It’s the same MO, the same signature, the same killer, from what I can see. What more do you want?’
‘I’m paid to keep an open mind. I’m just doing my job, you know.’
‘Right. And I’m just doing mine.’
She folded her arms tightly. ‘But what’s clear to me is you’ve already made up your mind.’
‘Look, it doesn’t matter what I think, and I don’t need to convince you, either. I’ve been told to see if there’s a link and that’s what I’m doing. I expect your full cooperation. If you have any issues with that, you’d better say so and we’ll take it up with Superintendent Cornish. If it is the same killer, the sooner we all know the better. We want justice for the victims, don’t we? That’s what’s important.’
She coloured and bit her lip. ‘Just don’t go getting in the way. If you need to speak to anybody to do with the case, and I mean anybody, I want to know. And I want to be kept up to speed on what you’re doing. OK?’
‘I have no problem with that,’ he said, although he had no intention of letting her block anything he wanted to do.
‘Until I’m told otherwise, this is
our
investigation.’
‘I’m aware of that,’ he said wearily. He turned and gazed around the room, scanning for a camera. ‘Is there CCTV anywhere?’
‘No. According to the membership secretary, there’s nothing worth taking.’
‘Apart from the boats,’ Minderedes said, coming over to where they were standing.
‘You’d look pretty silly going along the High Street with one of those, wouldn’t you?’ she replied. ‘Not much of a re-sale market down the local, I’d have thought.’
‘I was only joking.’
She raised her eyebrows. ‘They’re mainly worried about vandals and silly pranks by rival rowing clubs, not burglars. They seem to think security’s up to scratch enough to cope with that.’