‘She did?’ I looked at Derwent. His face was unreadable. ‘Did you see her later on?’
McCullough shook his head. ‘But there was another way out. Down the back stairs.’
‘You always need more than one way out for safety,’ Dobbs said sagely.
‘Didn’t you get people coming in that way if there was no one on the door?’
‘They weren’t too worried about that, they said. It was hard enough to find the main way in, let alone getting in through the back. That place was a rabbit warren. And Lee was keeping an eye on it anyway. It was near the bar.’
‘He didn’t mention it.’
‘Maybe he didn’t see her either. It was a busy night. Lots of people. And the room was dark.’
‘Have you been spoken to by any other police officers about this?’
‘You’re the first.’
Score another one for Godley’s team. We thanked them and headed back out to the car.
‘Call the girls who worked the bar. Let’s be thorough, for a change.’
I got hold of all three of them, one after another, in varying stages of wakefulness and helpfulness. Yes, they had been there. No, they hadn’t seen anything strange. Yes, they had been working with Lee all night. He had gone out to change over the beer barrels a few times. That had taken a couple of minutes, not more. Otherwise, he was there all along.
‘Well, that gives him an alibi.’
‘Drew wouldn’t have had a chance to slope off either. He was in plain view all night, according to the bouncers.’
‘They were decent enough,’ Derwent admitted. Any copper who had done a Saturday night town-centre shift knew the worth of good door staff; they could make the difference between keeping a tricky situation under control and a full-blown riot. ‘I’d trust them, to be honest. You want a safe pair of hands doing that job, and they both knew their stuff.’
‘You should be glad we can cross a few people off the list. What do you think DCI Redmond was playing at? She didn’t scratch the surface of this case,’ I said.
‘I know you want me to say something about how you should never put a woman in charge of an investigation.’
‘I don’t, actually.’
‘Well, that’s what I think.’ He was frowning, abstracted. ‘Why do you think Lee didn’t mention he was in charge of the way out?’
I shrugged. ‘Maybe because we didn’t ask him.’
‘Mm. Let’s look the Bancrofts up on the PNC when we get back. And the bouncers. Run everyone who was working there through the system and see if anything pops up. Someone isn’t telling us what they know, and I’m buggered if I’m going to put up with it.’
‘Where next?’
‘To the home of Tom Malton, proud possessor of a conviction for GBH. He actually owned up to being there. Makes me think he’s trying to come across as open and honest because he’s got something to hide.’
‘You really are a cynic, aren’t you?’
‘And usually proved right in the end.’
‘Where does he live?’
‘Camberwell. Not too far to travel to the club.’
‘Not too convenient for us,’ I remarked.
‘The world doesn’t exist for your convenience, Kerrigan. You’re starting to sound like the Bancrofts.’
Something – the parking ticket, or the sheer drudgery of the morning’s work – had put Derwent in a foul mood. I had enough sense to keep quiet and wait for him to vent it on the next interview, or the one after that. The explosion would come, I was fairly sure. I just didn’t want it to be aimed at me.
I could have told you Tom Malton had enjoyed the privileges of a public-school education within a minute of meeting him; he had been indelibly marked by it. He had the sort of accent that turns ‘oh’ to ‘eau’ and since his favourite expression seemed to be ‘oh gosh’, we heard it a lot in the course of introducing ourselves. He was wearing unfashionably baggy jeans and a rugby shirt and he had the pink-and-white complexion of a Gainsborough lady. Derwent lasted all the way to the sitting room of Malton’s modern and very comfortable flat before he came out with it.
‘How the hell did someone like you get a conviction for GBH?’
‘Being stupid, really.’ Malton sat down on the edge of an armchair, his hands tapping his knees, his heels together. ‘I had a row with a guy at uni – I mean, we were both drunk.’
‘And?’
‘I pushed him out of a window.’
‘What floor?’
‘The third.’
Derwent whistled. ‘And he didn’t die?’
‘Almost. He fractured his skull. He was in a coma for ten days.’ Malton was trying to sound matter-of-fact, but he was clearly upset about it. The pink in his face had deepened to a rich rose colour. ‘They said he only survived because he was so drunk, he was relaxed as he fell.’
‘Shit.’
‘Yah. Absolutely.’
‘What happened after the coma?’ I asked.
‘He woke up. No idea what had happened. I couldn’t even remember what the fight was about, but around ten people saw me do it, so I couldn’t pretend it wasn’t me. Even if I’d wanted to, which I didn’t.’
‘Did he make a good recovery?’
‘No. Not really. He dropped out. Still has memory trouble. Still walks with a limp.’ Malton looked as bleak as his boyish features allowed. ‘I keep in touch with him.’
‘How much time did you do?’
‘Oh gosh. Three years.’ Malton smiled at the expression on our faces. ‘Not much, is it?’
‘It’s more that you’re here now,’ I said. ‘I wouldn’t have thought you’d survive.’
He laughed. ‘It wasn’t too bad. I did my degree, but by correspondence. I got on okay with the other chaps. They didn’t know what to make of me, really, and I just take everyone as I find them, so it was all right.’
I still thought he was tougher than he looked. Derwent seemed to feel the same way.
‘What do you know about the girl who disappeared at the nightclub in Brixton last week?’
‘Nothing at all.’
‘Did you see her there?’ Derwent showed the picture, but Malton shook his head.
‘Definitely not. But I was distracted.’
‘Were you drunk?’
‘I don’t drink any more.’
‘What then? Drugs?’
‘Not them either.’ He swallowed. ‘My girlfriend dumped me. In the queue. It was her idea to go. It really wasn’t my thing. I should have gone home – cut my losses. But I went in anyway to try to persuade her to take me back.’
‘Didn’t work?’
‘Not even a little.’ He smiled ruefully. ‘Not meant to be, I suppose.’
‘Do you have a computer here?’
‘Just at work.’
‘What do you do for a living, Mr Malton?’
‘I work for my father’s company.’ He sounded very slightly embarrassed. We knew what he was saying. Daddy had given him a new start when no one else would have hired him.
‘Doing what?’
‘Venture capital.’
‘Fancy name for gambling,’ Derwent observed.
‘Pretty much,’ Malton agreed wryly.
‘Ever email people you don’t know because you like the look of them on Facebook?’
‘No.’ He looked appalled. ‘What a strange idea.’
‘Isn’t it, though?’ Derwent stood up and nodded to me. ‘I think we’re done here.’
In the car, he said, ‘If Little Lord Fauntleroy is guilty, he’s the best actor I’ve ever seen.’
‘Agreed.’
‘We should still check up on him. Talk to his probation officer.’
‘Agreed. Hey, which do you think was worse, public school or prison?’
‘School. Absolutely.’ It wasn’t a bad impersonation and I laughed. For a fraction of a second, Derwent and I were almost getting along.
The squad room was busy; almost every desk was occupied and a low hum of conversation filled the air. Derwent ground to a halt behind Harry Maitland’s chair.
‘Where did you get those? Is that the nightclub?’
‘Yeah.’ He flicked through the images he was viewing onscreen: masked faces caught by the flash against a background of bodies and dark walls. It was the slightly tawdry chaos of a dance floor late at night, where everyone is a little bit too drunk to be completely conscious of how they look. Awkward poses, unfortunate angles, smeared make-up and sweaty hair zipped by as Maitland clicked through at speed. ‘These are images we’ve collected from blogs and social-networking sites. PC Google helped. And the Brothers Grim website has a page where you can upload your pictures. That’s where this lot came from.’
Looking again, I saw that the images were watermarked with the skulls from their logo.
‘What are you looking for?’
‘The girl. We’re trying to spot her in the background in any of these to give us some idea of when she disappeared. Could have been at the end of the night, for all we know. I’ve found her in a few already. Have a look at the ones on the printer.’
Derwent headed off to check them out. I looked across the room and saw that Rob had made it into work. He was on the phone, one hand shielding his eyes. He looked pale and, without a twinge of pity, I recalled what Liv had said about him being hung-over. I looked back at the screen and grabbed Maitland’s shoulder.
‘Stop! That’s Lee.’ I pointed at a bare-chested man in a white mask, his halo of curls silhouetted against a light.
‘What is he wearing?’ Maitland leaned in closer. ‘Black shorts. Is that it? He looks like a stripogram.’
‘In fairness, if you had a body like that, you’d wear little shorts all the time.’
‘I’ve worked bloody hard to get this body, thanks.’ He patted his belly lovingly. ‘Many pints of Guinness and more than a few kebabs.’
‘Your self-discipline does you credit.’
Derwent came back with a sheaf of printouts and peered at the screen. ‘Which one of them is that?’
‘Lee.’
‘How can you tell?’
‘They look different.’
‘Not a lot.’
‘No, not a lot.’
‘It figures that you can tell them apart.’ Derwent turned to Maitland. ‘Kerrigan was drooling all over one of them.’
‘No, I wasn’t.’
‘Okay, he was drooling all over her.’
‘Sounds messy,’ Maitland commented, keeping his eyes on the screen, which was wise.
‘We need to know where Lee and Drew were as well. Can you look for them too?’
Maitland groaned. ‘Don’t tell me I’ve got to start again, Kerrigan.’
‘Yes, you do.’ Derwent weighed in on my side for a change. ‘Look for him, and look for a guy who’s exactly like him.’
‘Same clothes? How will I tell them apart?’
‘Drew was wearing an earpiece.’ I watched the next few images slide by. ‘That’s Drew. He’s wearing a black mask. That should make things easier.’
‘Okay. White mask, black shorts: Lee. Black mask and shorts: Drew. Got it. Are they suspects?’
Derwent leaned in. ‘Look at this picture, Harry. Everyone in it – everyone – is a suspect. And the next one. Everyone. And the one after that. Do you get the idea? We don’t have a fucking clue who took Cheyenne, so in the absence of anything you might call a lead, let’s just work out where they were and when they were there so we can rule them out or keep them on the board.’
‘Don’t get your knob in a knot,’ Harry said calmly. ‘I’ll do my best.’
‘That’s my boy.’ Derwent slapped him on the back, then looked at me. ‘What about those PNC searches?’
‘I’ll do them now.’
I sat down at my computer, unfolding the list the Bancrofts had given us while Derwent dragged up a chair and pushed it next to mine. He was a little bit closer than I would have liked, but I had nowhere to go; I was jammed up against the desk as it was.
‘Start off with the bouncers, just to make sure,’ he ordered, and I was about to but I didn’t get the chance.
‘Josh. Just the person I wanted to see.’ Godley was standing in the doorway, his face oddly blank. ‘I’ve got Glen’s post-mortem report on Cheyenne.’
‘And?’ Derwent said.
‘And you’re not going to believe this.’
It was unlike Godley to make such a dramatic statement and it turned heads around the room. Derwent pushed back from my desk, rolling his chair over to where the superintendent was standing. Curious about what was in the report, I stood up and moved a few paces in the same direction, aware that I wasn’t the only one. We gathered around Godley in a loose circle. If we weren’t supposed to eavesdrop on what he had to say, we’d be told soon enough.
‘What do you mean?’ Derwent asked. ‘What’s the big deal?’
‘How she died.’
Derwent clenched his hands. ‘What did he do to her?’
‘Absolutely nothing.’
‘What?’
‘She died of natural causes.’
‘That’s impossible,’ Derwent said flatly.
‘It’s not impossible. She asphyxiated, according to Glen, but it was brought on by a severe asthma attack.’
‘She had asthma.’ Rob’s voice came from close behind me and I resisted the urge to turn around. ‘From what the housekeeper said, it wasn’t serious enough for her to remember to carry her inhaler.’
‘So she went out without it, got an unexpected attack, died, disappeared for a week and then wrapped herself up in a blanket before lying down stark naked on a sofa in an abandoned warehouse with her hands tied. Yeah, that makes sense.’
‘Dial down the sarcasm, Josh. No one is suggesting that the cause of death means there was no foul play. Obviously something bad happened to her. Just as obviously, she was missing for the six days between her disappearance and the discovery of her body, and no one has come forward to say they were looking after her. The only thing the cause of death suggests to me is that she wasn’t supposed to die when she did.’
‘When did she die?’ Everyone turned to look at me. ‘During the six days. At what point did she die?’
‘Between twenty-four and thirty-six hours before she was discovered. Glen says he can’t narrow it down any more than that. It was cold in the warehouse. Her body was well preserved.’
‘Was she sexually assaulted?’ Derwent asked.
‘Yes.’
It wasn’t a surprise, but I could feel everyone around me react to that one word – a tiny shift in the atmosphere in the room. The faces I could see were grave.
‘Repeatedly?’
‘So it would seem. Glen found bruising and abrasions at different stages of healing that had clearly been inflicted over several days.’
‘Given that she died of natural causes, is there any possibility that it was consensual? Rough sex that went wrong?’ Maitland looked around as a ripple of disapproval ran through the circle. ‘Sorry, but it’s worth asking. Just because she was under age and it was illegal, it doesn’t mean she wasn’t a keen participant.’