by Jane Casey
There was a low murmur of conversation from the kitchen that made me stop and listen – a question that was answered briefly. I thought for a second, then took off my suit jacket and undid a button on my shirt before I went to the kitchen door.
‘Something smells good.’
‘Neil is cooking for me,’ my flatmate Amanda said. She stressed the last two words: Don’t think you’re included just because you live here.
Neil was tall and gangly, with prominent ears and a goofy smile. He beamed at me and waved a wooden spoon to say hello. ‘Nothing special. Just a curry.’
‘If there are any leftovers, let me know,’ I said lightly.
‘Not likely.’ Amanda sipped her wine, staring at me over the rim of the glass with round, slightly protuberant brown eyes. It was her house and she had started out being friendly, but over time that had faded to semi-polite hostility. She was ridiculously well paid for her marketing job at a big legal firm, but it was tedious beyond belief. I was sure she envied me my job, despite all the sneering she did at the police.
‘I thought you might be working late.’
‘Not tonight.’ I went past her to the fridge and found a bottle of white wine. I tried not to drink too much but there were times that only a huge glass of ultra-chilled Chardonnay would help me to get over a long day.
‘So you’re staying in?’ Amanda sounded annoyed. I felt as if I was intruding at the best of times, and when she was clearly looking forward to a night in with her boyfriend, I should really offer to go out. I could go to the cinema or something, I thought. But I did pay to live there and the last thing I wanted was to go out again. Especially on my own. I needed company to take my mind off Minnie.
‘I’m really tired,’ I said. ‘I need an early night.’
‘Oh.’ She didn’t even try to sound as if it was OK.
Neil turned round, his face open and kind. ‘I can make a bit extra, Mands. If you’d like some, that is, Georgia.’
I gave him a dazzling smile. ‘That would be amazing. But only if it isn’t any trouble.’
‘I can chuck in a few vegetables to add a bit of volume. It’s not a problem, honestly.’
‘That’s lucky, isn’t it.’ Amanda put her glass down with a vicious clink that drew Neil’s attention to her. Too late, he realised he had done the wrong thing. He turned back to the curry, stirring it with extreme concentration. His shoulders were hunched as if he was waiting for a slap across the back of his head.
‘Very lucky,’ I said brightly, as if everything was fine. ‘I was wondering what I could cook with what I’ve got in the fridge. Can I do anything to help, Neil?’
‘You could chop some peppers and a few mushrooms.’
I rolled back my sleeves as I went over to the chopping board. It was beside the cooker, so we were shoulder to shoulder, our backs to Amanda. I glanced up at Neil and smiled before I picked up the knife, creating a bubble of intimacy that she was excluded from. He blushed. That’ll teach you to be a bitch, Amanda.
‘How’s work? Have you caught that girl’s killer yet?’ Amanda asked abruptly.
‘Not yet.’
‘Strange. I would have thought it was easy. It’s all on camera, isn’t it?’
‘The CCTV isn’t that helpful,’ I said quietly.
‘What’s this?’ Neil asked.
‘Georgia is working on the investigation into that schoolgirl who got stabbed on the bus.’
‘In Clapham? I saw that in the paper.’ Neil whistled. ‘Nasty case.’
‘It’s really unpleasant.’ I was scraping pepper seeds off the flesh with care. ‘We will get whoever did it.’
‘If you haven’t got them by now, what makes you think you’ll ever find them?’
I resisted the urge to turn and scream at Amanda, but I really wanted to ask her what she knew about it.
‘Police work isn’t like it is on TV. Sometimes investigations take months and months. There’s all kinds of evidence we need to collect before we can start narrowing down our list of suspects. The lab takes longer to give us results than you’d think.’
‘That’s fascinating,’ Neil said, and I risked a glance over my shoulder at Amanda, who was playing with her long brown hair and looking thoroughly peeved.
‘You must be under extra pressure because of her being a white private-school kid. No one would care if she was a black girl.’
‘That’s not true. We would investigate it in exactly the same way.’
‘Please. The Met is institutionally racist. Everyone knows that.’
If I had been Josh Derwent I would have let her have it. I imagined him stepping towards her, looming over her as he jabbed a finger in her face. You are white, and grew up in Berkshire, and had music lessons and a pony and every privilege it’s possible to have. What the fuck would you know about institutional racism?
As it was, I concentrated on the job I was doing. ‘We have to investigate the murders of a lot of young black kids because some of them get drawn into gangs and lead a more dangerous kind of life. Minnie is getting attention from the media because she’s unusual, but that doesn’t affect how we do our jobs. We want to get justice for all of them, not just the ones who get the headlines.’
‘It’s such a cool job,’ Neil said, and I smiled at him again.
‘It can be. I think these are done.’
‘Thanks.’ As he took the chopping board from me to scrape the peppers into the curry, his fingers brushed mine.
‘I was thinking,’ Amanda said, ‘that what I’d really like to do tonight is eat quickly and go to the pub.’
‘Really?’ Neil looked surprised. ‘I thought you wanted to stay in.’
‘I’ve changed my mind. I just feel like going out.’ She had picked up her phone and was checking her messages. ‘Frenchie and Carl are going to the Page and Sword. Shall I tell them we’ll see them there?’
‘Sure.’
‘I’ll see if anyone else wants to come.’ Her fingers flew as she frowned down at the screen. She lived within a few streets of most of her university friends, something I found mildly claustrophobic. She was always arranging impromptu nights out and last-minute dinner parties with whoever was around. She never included me, and I tried not to mind, but it would have been nice to be asked occasionally. I didn’t have a lot of friends, especially women. I always got on better with men – until we slept together and they ghosted me. If that didn’t happen, their girlfriends got worried about me being too much competition and made them back off. If I thought about it too much I felt so deeply lonely I could barely breathe, so I didn’t think about it.
‘Do you want to come along, Georgia?’ Neil asked. He looked over at Amanda, who was staring at him as if she couldn’t believe what she’d heard. ‘I thought she might like to meet Lewis.’
‘Lewis,’ Amanda repeated. ‘No. That’s not a good idea.’
‘Why not?’ He turned to me. ‘Lewis is a great bloke. His girlfriend dumped him before Christmas and he’s just starting to think about getting back into dating. I bet he’d love you.’
‘Really?’
‘Yeah.’ He took out his phone and opened Facebook, then showed me the screen. ‘That’s Lewis. He’s a photographer.’
I had low expectations but Lewis was surprisingly easy on the eye: lean in jeans and a white T-shirt, grinning on top of a mountain in bright sunshine. Sunglasses hid his eyes, but he had a great smile. ‘He’s cute.’
‘I really don’t think you’d get on.’ Amanda put her phone down. ‘Neil, can I have a word with you for a moment?’
He followed her out of the room, dog-like. I still had his phone in my hand. I looked at Lewis’s profile again, memorising the details, thumbing through the pictures to confirm that he really was gorgeous and it wasn’t just one lucky shot. He had a website for his photography; he wouldn’t be too hard to track down if I wanted to find him. It was clear to me that Amanda had a longstanding crush on Lewis, who was approximately fifty times more attractive
than her own boyfriend, and equally clear that she was far too plain to get Lewis’s attention. I, on the other hand, might just be able to turn his head. I felt a thrill of excitement, mixed with the competitive instinct that was my blessing and my curse. I wanted to meet Lewis, and I wanted him to fall for me, because it would annoy the shit out of Amanda.
That wasn’t the only reason – I wasn’t a complete monster. I wanted to be with someone who would tell me I was beautiful and appreciate me. I wanted to magic away the loneliness that seemed to run through me like the grain in wood.
I sighed and put Neil’s phone down so I could stir the curry, just in time. The kitchen door opened and Neil came in, alone. Amanda would be sitting in the living room, listening to him doing her dirty work.
‘Um, Georgia, I talked it over with Amanda and she thinks – well, she doesn’t think it would be a good idea.’ Neil looked as if he had been whipped soundly. ‘She thinks he’s not over his ex and – well, she thinks you wouldn’t suit.’
‘Oh really?’ I kept my tone light. Head up, Georgia. Don’t let the hurt show.
‘Yeah. I shouldn’t have said anything.’
‘Don’t worry. You were just trying to do something nice.’ I smiled at him. ‘I don’t mind.’
‘Really?’
‘Five minutes ago I’d never heard of him. How could I possibly mind?’
‘Great.’ He looked truly relieved. ‘I’m glad you’re not upset.’
I laughed. ‘Course not. Look, do you think this is done?’
He came over to look, leaning over my shoulder so I could feel his breath on the side of my face. ‘Should be.’
‘I’ll get some bowls.’ I turned and collided with him deliberately, pressing my breasts against him for an instant longer than necessary. ‘Oh, sorry.’
‘No, no. My fault.’ His eyes looked glazed now, as the blood drained out of his brain.
‘You know, you should come and cook here more often,’ I said softly, and ran my hand down his arm, as if I couldn’t stop myself from touching him.
‘I – I’d like that.’
I held his gaze for a long moment, then sashayed over to the cupboard and reached up to get the bowls. He was staring at my bum when I glanced back at him, as I’d intended. For a moment I considered whether I should feel guilty about Amanda, who was sitting in the living room, oblivious. Then I dismissed it with a mental shrug. She only had herself to blame.
Chapter 11
I sat at my desk, pretending to work, but actually watching Maeve. She was focused on her computer screen, lost in concentration.
‘What’s up with her?’ Derwent had stopped beside my desk, but all of his attention was on the other side of the room, as usual. Once again I had the impression I was about as interesting to him as a stapler, and far less useful.
‘She’s watching the CCTV from the bus.’
‘Again?’
‘All morning.’
‘Why?’
‘No idea. She must be looking for something, but she hasn’t told me what it is.’
‘We’ve looked at every frame. There’s nothing to see.’
‘But it’s all we’ve got,’ I pointed out. ‘And there must be something to see, or Minnie would have walked off the bus and gone home as usual.’
Derwent shook his head and sat down on the edge of my desk, folding his arms. It was almost exactly what I’d imagined him doing – except that he was facing away from me. He wasn’t there because of me. It was the best vantage point in the office if what you wanted to do was stare at Maeve, and that seemed to be exactly what he wanted to do.
Maeve was compressing her lips as she watched the screen, barely blinking, not even seeming to breathe. I wished I could summon up that kind of concentration.
‘Do you think she’ll see something none of the rest of us have spotted?’
‘Yep.’ He sounded certain.
‘Really?’
‘That’s what she does.’ He glanced at me. ‘You must have noticed this. Give her a problem and she worries at it until she’s solved it. And I bet you anything she knows who did it already. She’s just looking to prove it.’
‘How would she know who did it? Guesswork? Feminine intuition?’ It came out with a biting edge and Derwent’s eyes narrowed. I moderated my tone quickly. ‘Just – wouldn’t she have said something in the meeting if she had a promising line of enquiry?’
‘Not if she has an idea she can’t back up yet.’ He turned back to look at her, running his thumb over his bottom lip as he considered her. ‘She learned that the hard way.’
I thought about the meeting, a nightmarish start to the day. It was becoming clear to me and everyone else that none of the witnesses had told us anything helpful at all and we were running out of ideas. A teenage girl stabbed to death in public, in full view of CCTV cameras, and the Met couldn’t solve it. The headlines in the newspapers were the opposite of flattering and, as far as the boss was concerned, we deserved the abuse.
‘You may or may not be aware of the rumours doing the rounds on social media about this case,’ Una Burt had said heavily. ‘If you’re not familiar with it, for the past few days comments have been circulating on Facebook and Twitter, suggesting that we are engaged in covering up a terror campaign. The suggestion is that Minnie was killed by an Islamic extremist group who are striking at random on public transport and we are keeping it hushed up because we don’t want to cause panic.’
‘What a load of horseshit.’ Belcott sniffed.
‘It’s ridiculous, but it’s also dangerous. I take it you’re all aware of the incident last night on the Piccadilly Line.’ Una Burt had scanned the room, looking for a reaction. ‘There’s a young man in hospital this morning because another passenger thought he was going to stab him and panicked.’
I had seen the footage before the meeting: a short, nasty row with a large man holding the wrists of a skinny dark-haired youth, yelling for help. A bald man jumped up from his seat and punched the young man in the face. There was no way for the young man to dodge the blow or defend himself with his hands restrained as they were. The back of his head smacked into a partition on his way to the floor where he sprawled, out cold. The two men exchanged a handshake, grinning. Heroes.
Except that the young man was a Moroccan waiter, and wasn’t armed, and hadn’t been planning any kind of killing spree. He had just been on his way home from work.
‘We need to get this situation under control. The people of London deserve to feel safe as they go about their daily routines. Besides, a young girl lost her life and her parents deserve answers.’ Una Burt had glowered around the room. As if any of us were going to argue with her, I thought, and was immediately proved wrong.
‘They didn’t seem that interested when we interviewed them,’ Derwent had said sardonically.
‘Presumably they were in shock.’
‘Presumably,’ he repeated, in a tone that made it clear he disagreed. Una Burt bristled.
‘They had lost their child in the most shocking circumstances.’
‘No doubt they were not at their best,’ he had said evenly.
Burt had dismissed him with, ‘Anyway, you don’t have to like the family to want to find Minnie’s killer.’
She was right. You only had to want to have a career at the end of this investigation. I wondered if anyone else was beginning to feel a worm of anxiety twisting in the pit of their stomachs. This had seemed like such an easy case when I’d rolled up in the car that first night. It was anything but.
‘If this was some nutter who attacked her at random, it’s like looking for a piece of hay in a haystack.’ Belcott had looked around, seeking agreement. ‘London is full of weirdos. We know she seemed to be OK when she got on the bus, but what if someone stabbed her while she was waiting for the bus, or while she was walking to it? She might not have realised how badly hurt she was. That bus route goes past a major hospital. We don’t know for sure that she wasn’t heading there for t
reatment.’
‘But she was wearing her school uniform,’ Burt had objected. ‘It was clear that she was a child.’
‘That’s an invitation for a certain kind of pervert.’
‘What kind of pervert would that be?’ Derwent smirked at Belcott, who had reddened. ‘Hope you always remember to clean up your search history at the end of a session, Pete. I’d hate to see you get in trouble.’
‘Fuck off.’
‘We can’t discount that Minnie might have been deliberately and specifically targeted.’ It was the first time Maeve had spoken in the meeting.
‘Who wants to kill a fifteen-year-old girl?’ Belcott had demanded. ‘I mean, if it’s not a sex thing or terrorism?’
‘Someone who hated her.’
Una Burt had frowned. ‘She was popular in school, wasn’t she? No issues there or at home.’
‘I don’t think that’s quite right. But we haven’t made a connection between her home and school life and her death.’ Maeve had been looking down at her notebook, which did an effective job of disguising whatever she was thinking. I wondered if she was regretting speaking up.
‘We could issue a statement to the media implying that she might have been deliberately targeted. See if we can shake anything loose,’ I’d suggested.
‘Absolutely not.’ Una Burt had slammed her hand on the desk in front of her and I’d flinched. ‘The press will say we are victim-blaming because we haven’t been able to find her murderer – and I’m not sure they’d be entirely wrong.’
I had waited for Maeve to explain her reasoning, but she said nothing. And she had gone on saying nothing for the rest of the meeting. In fact, she had said nothing for the rest of the morning.
Maeve’s phone rang and she came back to life. After a few pleasantries she listened intently, her pen racing over the paper in front of her as she scribbled notes. At the end of the brief conversation, she hung up, leaned back in her chair and sighed in triumph. Her shirt tightened across her chest, and the annoying thing was she probably wasn’t even aware of the effect.
