Frankie (7 page)

Now it was Jameson's turn to be silent. ‘All right, Sean,' he said finally. ‘Bring it in and we'll see what we can do.'

‘I'll be there within the hour,' Carter replied. The line went dead.

Walking back into Scotland Yard always felt to Carter a bit like going back to school to see his old teachers – it gave him that same sensation in his stomach, a mixture
of dread and strange excitement. ‘Hi, Sean,' a former colleague called to him as they passed in a corridor. ‘Still trying to nail the Swiss wankers – I mean, bankers?' Carter smiled weakly. He'd worked there for several years, and didn't feel that he missed it when he was away, but was never so sure when he came back – there was something about the buzz around the place that appealed to him, something that was missing at the SFO. Jameson's snipe about the paper clips wasn't that far from the mark sometimes, and Carter had often found himself wishing he had something a bit meatier to sink his teeth into.

This job was different, though. Important. Probably the most important case he'd ever been assigned to – and certainly more important than Rosemary thought when she first contacted him. Suddenly the sight of everyone scurrying around the Yard like worker bees didn't seem so impressive after all.

Jameson was too busy to see Carter himself – not that Sean had expected him to make himself available – but he smiled when he saw the DS who was waiting for him. ‘Hello, Yvonne.' He grinned. ‘Haven't they made you chief inspector yet?'

‘Babies, Sean.' The dark-haired officer smiled back. ‘They get in the way of a girl's career. Not that you'd know much about that – unless you've decided to break the heart of every WPC in London and find yourself a girlfriend.'

Carter's eyes flickered towards the floor. It always wrong-footed him when people referred to his personal life – or lack of it. He could flirt with the best of them, but something stopped him from ever taking anything further. Not enough time, he would tell himself. Maybe
when I've left the job. But in the dark honesty of the small hours, he wondered if that would ever really happen.

‘Don't they make you shave at the SFO?' Yvonne asked breezily, changing the subject as if aware that she had said something she shouldn't have.

Carter's hand automatically touched his face. ‘Designer stubble – it's considered very fashionable when you work with accountants all day long. Did old misery-guts tell you what I need?'

‘He's not in a very talkative mood, I'm afraid. Said something to do with forensics?'

Carter handed her the black bin liner he was holding. ‘There's a woman's jacket in here with a bloodstain on it. It's a long shot, but I need to know if there's a DNA match with anyone on the system.'

‘Whose jacket is it?'

‘Just someone who's helping us with our inquiries.'

‘Ooh, you're so mysterious these days, DI Carter.'

‘Perhaps – but I still outrank you, even if I'm with the SFO.' He flashed her a smile, then took a pencil and notepad from his jacket pocket and scribbled down a number. ‘I also need a trace on this mobile. As soon as anyone switches it on and uses it, I need to know exactly where they are. Call me immediately.'

‘Right.'

‘And just one more thing.' He handed her the scrap of paper on which Rosemary had written her bank details. ‘If any cards from these accounts get used, I need to know where and when.'

‘Yes, sir!' Yvonne answered mockingly. ‘Anything else?'

‘That will be all, Detective Sergeant.' He gave her a
quick peck on the cheek. ‘Buzz me when you've got anything.'

The snow was thawing, dripping heavily from the trees in the garden of The Stables. The pond was still frozen, and a solitary blackbird was standing on the ice. Harriet Johnson watched the scene through the kitchen window, which was misted slightly by the condensation. It was warm inside – the central heating had been on constantly for the past two months, much to her husband's annoyance – and there was a pot of something slow-cooking in the oven that made the whole house smell good. Harriet loved her kitchen almost as much as her garden, and she ruled it like a benevolent queen, producing lovely meals for her husband and herself, and an endless succession of cakes, biscuits and other goodies, as well as making sure it was always clean and tidy. ‘A good cook always works in a tidy kitchen,' she would tell anyone who would listen. It was certainly a kitchen to be proud of, one that wouldn't look out of place in a glossy magazine about country living, with its large oak dining table that was far too big for the two of them, the Aga and the large butler's sink. The kettle finished boiling and Harriet filled a cafetière before placing it on a chunky, wooden tray with a couple of mugs and a jug of warm milk, and carrying it through to the sitting room where Sally, her closest friend, was sitting.

Harriet was in her early fifties, one of those women to whom age lent dignity, and she dressed the part of the well-to-do Surrey housewife to perfection. Her clothes were stylish – the sort of style that needed a bit of money to maintain. Her once naturally blonde hair had been
dyed to hide the grey, and it was well tended by weekly trips to the hairdresser. She was a beautiful woman who looked after herself.

She poured out the coffee and then sank comfortably into the sofa. Tuesday mornings were often spent like this – William was at work, and Sally invariably had the morning off from her part-time job at the charity shop, so they would grab the opportunity to take time out and gossip for England. No one in the village was safe from their wagging tongues. It was all harmless enough stuff – rarely did anything truly gossip-worthy happen in the village, but to hear these two during their weekly chats, anyone could be mistaken into thinking that they lived on the set of a soap opera, not in the sleepy commuter village of Limpsfield in Surrey, which lay just on the outskirts of London. This week a group of youths had had to be removed from the local pub – William had an idea about who they were. He wouldn't have wanted to be in their shoes, Harriet confided to her friend: he had his doubts about the landlord's past history, but then anyone with an East End accent was likely to be thought of as practically a Kray twin round here.

They chatted for at least a couple of hours before Sally looked at her watch. ‘Is that the time?' she exclaimed, as she always did. ‘I must get to work. Thanks for the coffee.'

‘OK,' Harriet replied. ‘I'll call you during the week.'

Once Sally had left, Harriet pottered around in the kitchen, rinsing out mugs, wiping down work surfaces and generally filling in time until she needed to get ready for her yoga class at the local gym. Almost without thinking, she switched on the small television that sat on the corner of the kitchen work surface and went to make
herself a coffee – instant this time. She stood with her back against the sink watching the lunchtime news. She was waiting for the weather forecast more than anything else – tomorrow was William's day off, and they had planned to take a drive out to a pub they both liked, but if this incessant snow was going to keep on falling, she knew he wouldn't want to move from his chair in front of the fire. She didn't really blame him. He spent half the week in an office, the other half tramping around outside, so it was fair enough that he should enjoy their home when he wasn't at work.

The news was the usual round of tube strikes that she didn't approve of – it always seemed they wanted more and everyone else had to suffer for their grievances – and foreign affairs that she didn't understand but felt she had to listen to. Another bomb in Baghdad, and security alerts around the world that seemed to be the usual thing these days. It all tended to melt into one as far as she was concerned. But she always enjoyed watching the last item, which inevitably focused on a star out of one of the many glossy magazines she read. Then the newsreader handed over to the local newsrooms. ‘A man was found dead in central London last night. Police believe he was the victim of a violent attack. He has not yet been formally identified, and police have issued this picture of a young woman seen leaving the scene of the crime, who it is thought might be able to help them with their inquiries.' A blurred picture of a blonde woman running alongside some park railings came onto the screen. ‘The public are being warned not to approach the woman if they see her, but to get in touch with Crimestoppers immediately.' The telephone numbers appeared underneath the picture.

Suddenly Harriet felt light-headed. She gasped as she looked at the screen and dropped her cup of coffee.

Surely she had got all this out of her system – the impossible moments when she thought she saw her in the supermarket, or in a cafe, or standing in a queue outside the cinema. The girl in the crowd who, from behind, she was sure was her daughter, but who turned out – when she rushed up to grab her – to be a total stranger.

Surely she had come to terms with the fact that she had gone.

And then the picture disappeared from the screen, just as her daughter used to disappear into the crowd every time she thought she had seen her.

Maybe she was mistaken. Maybe it was all starting again. But she didn't think so.

‘Dear God,' she whispered to herself. ‘Francesca.'

Back at the station, Taylor was doing his best to get his wife off the phone. He knew it was a running joke that, since his daughter had left home recently, Annabelle couldn't get through the day without speaking to him at least five times, and that all the officers took the piss behind his back; but he had no idea that the speculations for her almost obsessive need to speak to her husband ran from her inability to change a light bulb to her hourly need for passionate phone sex. The reality, of course, was much more mundane: ‘When will you be home?' ‘What would you like for tea?' ‘Have you spoken to Samantha?' ‘Do you think I should call her?' ‘Can we go out tonight?' ‘You're not going to the pub after work again, are you?' The list was endless.

‘Look, love, if you don't let me get on, I won't be home before midnight,' he told her rather impatiently. He sighed as he put down the phone. Almost immediately Steve Irvin entered. ‘I thought you were going home,' Taylor said irritably.

‘I had a quick nap,' he said. ‘Looks like you were right about the Newington Park body. We've got a fingerprint ID. Robert Alexander Strut. Sounds like a real nasty piece of work.' He dropped a file on Taylor's desk.

Taylor flicked through Strut's record. Drugs, pimping, GBH – a string of convictions longer than your arm and half his adult life behind bars. ‘Nice,' he said almost to himself, before turning back to Irvin. ‘At least our runaway beauty has been doing her bit to keep the prison population down.'

‘Not sure I'd call her a beauty, sir.'

‘You're too fussy, that's your problem.' The phone rang. ‘Now make yourself useful and find me another cup of tea. Hello, Mark Taylor.'

‘I've got a Sergeant Johnson from Surrey Police,' the receptionist told him.

‘OK, Lynn, put him through.'

There was a beep as he was put on hold, and then a voice he didn't recognize came on the line. ‘Detective Inspector Taylor?'

‘Yes.'

‘This is Sergeant William Johnson. Surrey Police.' The man's voice sounded tremulous, unsure of itself.

‘What can I do for you, sergeant?'

‘I understand it was you who released the picture this morning of a girl running from a fatality in central London.'

‘That's right.'

‘My wife caught a glimpse of it on television an hour ago. She's convinced it's her daughter – my stepdaughter – who ran away from home four years ago.'

Christ, thought Taylor, looking at his watch. ‘How sure is your wife?'

There was a brief silence. ‘May I speak in confidence?'

‘Go ahead.'

‘When Francesca left home, it hit my wife very hard. She had a nervous breakdown – believed she kept seeing her in the street and refused to accept she was gone. She's over that now, and to be honest I thought we'd seen an end to this. But I've got hold of a copy of the picture myself now, and I have to say it looks very much like Francesca.'

‘Why did she leave home?'

‘We don't know.'

‘Has she tried to contact you since?'

‘No. Not once. But maybe if she's in trouble she'll think of coming to us. I have to tell you, DI Taylor, that this is totally uncharacteristic. I'm sure you've got your reasons for thinking she was involved, but she was always a very gentle girl. I'd be amazed if there wasn't some other explanation. My wife didn't want me to get in touch with you in case it got her into any more trouble …' His voice trailed off.

‘We're waiting for fingerprints and DNA results,' Taylor told him honestly, ‘but we have CCTV footage that shows her leaving the crime scene. Can you give us any pictures of your stepdaughter so that we can do an ID?'

‘Yes, yes of course …' Johnson's voice went quiet once
more. ‘Look,' he said eventually, ‘I'll do whatever I can to help. So will my wife. We just want to know that Francesca is safe. But can you keep me informed?'

Taylor thought about it. Police etiquette dictated that you didn't keep another officer in the dark if you knew something they had a personal interest in, and frankly he didn't care enough about the whole incident in any case to start coming on all mysterious. ‘The guy she killed was no loss to society,' he said finally. ‘Pimp, dealer.'

‘What was Francesca doing involved with someone like that?'

Suddenly Taylor felt almost sorry for him. ‘Look, I don't know your stepdaughter. I'm sure she's a lovely girl, but there're not many ways for girls on the street to earn a living round here.'

‘But I know Francesca –'

‘I don't know the full story yet. As I get more information, I'm sure we'll talk further. Give me your address and I'll send someone round to talk to your wife now and collect some photographs. If your stepdaughter gets in touch, let me know.'