by Sabina Manea
‘You took the words right out of my mouth,’ replied Carliss. ‘The million-dollar question is, who’s the fourth person?’
‘Could be an incidental guest, I suppose. But I’d be interested to see if the fourth set matches one of the Aurora Borealis lot,’ said Lucia with a glint in her eye. For the first time in this case, she had a feeling that they might be onto something of significance.
‘There’s one more thing, before I tease you about your drunken exploits. I haven’t forgotten about that,’ joked Carliss. ‘They found a button on the sitting room floor that doesn’t seem to match any of Genevieve Taylor’s clothes. It’s quite distinctive, see?’ He pointed at the photo in the report.
‘Yes, it is. Very unusual.’ Lucia stared hard at the button. It was mother of pearl, in the shape of a delicately coloured dusty pink rose. Artisanal, most likely, or certainly of a limited series. ‘Any prints on it?’
‘Yes, though we don’t know whose. Not Genevieve’s, in any case, so we can conclude the button isn’t hers,’ replied the inspector.
‘OK. This is good. It finally feels like we’re making some sort of progress here. Do you think we should be able to get everyone’s prints soon?’ said Lucia, stretching her legs under the table and letting out a big yawn. Now the hangover was slowly lifting, the tiredness was setting in. She was looking forward to a couple more hours in bed for a full recovery.
‘Yes, I’ll put my foot on the pedal and get them done as soon as possible.’ Carliss’s mouth relaxed into a cheeky grin. ‘And now for the ribbing. I’ll make it gentle, I promise. How much of last night do you remember?’
‘Less than I’d like,’ answered Lucia with some embarrassment.
‘Don’t worry, you didn’t do anything terrible. You and Cam were cackling like witches in a corner just before they chucked us out at closing time. She didn’t seem too bad, so I assumed you must be in a similar state. She’s not much of a drinker though, so she probably paced herself. Not the same can be said for you, Miss Steer. When you stumbled out of the pub and sat down on the kerb, head in your hands, looking dangerously peaky, I realised you were pissed as a newt. Certainly in no fit state to get yourself home.’
‘Oh God. Sorry…’ began Lucia. The coolness and composure that she thought she’d mustered were quickly slipping away.
‘It’s alright. Worse things have happened. I called a cab and bundled you into it, and I took you home and put you to bed. Keys are back in your handbag in case you look for them and can’t find them. I kept an eye on you for a bit, but you seemed fine, just fast asleep and breathing regularly, so I let myself out and headed home. What larks, eh?’
‘What larks indeed. Thank you for looking after me. What an idiot,’ said Lucia with a small smile. She owed him one and was grateful for such a good friend. She was also hugely relieved that she hadn’t done something she’d regret.
Chapter 19
Walter Chanler stood outside Kentish Town police station and unusually found himself a little nervous. After all, he wasn’t the type for whom police stations were a common port of call. In fact, he had never been in trouble in his life, certainly not beyond stealing an apple or two from the neighbour’s orchard as a child, back home in South Carolina. He steeled himself and walked in as confidently as he could, asking to see DCI Carliss.
‘Walter, come in.’ The inspector beckoned the guest into his office, where Lucia was waiting with bated breath to hear the news of the escapade. ‘Have a seat.’
Lucia couldn’t wait any longer. ‘So, tell us. How did it go last night?’
‘Good, I think. They’re certainly an interesting bunch, to put it mildly,’ replied Walter with a wry smile. He definitely looked like he had been enjoying himself.
‘You have to tell us everything. And don’t scrimp on any detail, please, however insignificant it may have seemed at the time,’ interjected Lucia.
‘OK. I turned up just after seven. I rang the doorbell, and it took a good few minutes and a couple of aggressive goes on it for someone to answer. I could hear voices inside, so I knew someone was in. Raised voices, I should say, a man and a woman, though I couldn’t really make out what they were saying. It didn’t sound particularly friendly, in any case. Darius eventually let me in. I’m pretty sure he’d forgotten I was supposed to be turning up, because he looked at me as if I had three heads. I said my piece and reminded him that I’d been recommended by Christina, and he let me in.’
Lucia had done some masterful pulling of strings to engineer Walter’s admittance to Aurora Borealis. Nina’s tangled web of connections had proved crucial yet again. Christina Sellers was a professional socialite and frequenter of just about every art or literary event in the metropolis. She and Nina went way back, having survived the ordeal of boarding school together, though their paths momentarily split when Nina went to Cambridge, and Christina chose the less intellectually demanding option of secretarial college. This was a natural career progression for a sharp but fundamentally lazy rich girl, and it ensured the effective ensnaring of a suitable husband that would keep her in the style that she was accustomed to. While Rupert Sellers was busy toiling away in his secretive Mayfair hedge fund offices, his wife was busy working the party circuit and hanging out with the likes of Darius Major. As a result, Christina didn’t take much persuading to recommend Walter as the kind of chap that would fit in well with the ethos of Aurora Borealis.
‘Who was there?’ asked Lucia.
‘Just Darius and Marie. As soon as I walked in, it was clear they’d been arguing. She was in a huff – all crossed arms and nasty looks in his direction. She tried to mellow a bit for my sake, but she wasn’t fooling anyone. Darius tried to smooth things over and got us some drinks. A couple of glasses of wine in, Marie was much more amenable. There was still an edge to her, mind you. Something in her behaviour seemed false, a bit frantic, with a laugh that was just a touch too high-pitched. Does that make sense?’ Walter said.
‘Yeah, I think it does,’ replied Carliss. ‘Go on.’
‘About forty-five minutes later, Miles made an appearance. He looked the worse for wear. Not drunk or anything, you understand, just a total mess, like he’d been sleeping rough,’ said Walter.
‘That fits,’ Lucia said. ‘He’s lost his job and he’s let himself go. That’s what we got when we went to see him at home.’ She gestured to Carliss for approval, and he nodded.
‘The rest of the evening went by pretty uneventfully. Nobody else turned up; no sign of Edoardo or Rosie. It was convivial, which I was surprised at, given the row I’d just witnessed between Darius and Marie, but they were behaving as if nothing had happened. We talked about this and that. Darius is trying to write a novel and get it published, and he was really keen to peacock on about that. In my opinion, he’s not going to get very far. It’s derivative at best; a sort of substandard Jack Kerouac road trip meets journey of self-discovery affair. Plus, his grammar is atrocious.’
Lucia smiled at this last comment. Walter was highly organised and meticulous, and to him bad grammar was up there with the worst sins one could possibly commit.
‘What about Miles? How did he seem?’ asked the inspector.
‘He was quiet to start with, but he loosened up after a drink. I tried to subtly ask about Genevieve, like you told me to, just to take the general pulse on the matter. Darius seemed upset, though it’s hard to work out how much of it was theatrical display. Marie just looked as if she’d trod in dog poop. I don’t think she had much love for the dead woman. Miles, on the other hand, now this was interesting.’ Walter perked up all of a sudden as he remembered. ‘I said, “What a shame for someone so young to die,” and he muttered, only just loud enough for me to hear, “Maybe she had it coming.” Very odd. I didn’t really know what to say to that, so I left it. Darius and Marie didn’t seem to register it.’
Lucia pondered this revelation and wondered if her gut instinct about Miles Donovan that she had summarily dismissed had been on the right tr
ack after all.
Chapter 20
On the Monday morning following the team festivities, Lucia stood outside Trish’s Nails on Kentish Town Road. The shop window was steamed up, and the letters that spelled the name were starting to rust around the edges. By contrast, the ‘OPEN’ sign flashed conspicuously so as to attract passing custom. The nail bar was one of those places where you could just rock up straight off the street.
Trinh was just parking up and was on her way. Lucia decided this was a good opportunity to get a feel for the place on her own first, without the distraction of another’s presence. She walked in through the creaky door that shut slowly behind her and instantly felt her senses assaulted by a sharp, all-encompassing chemical smell. The floor beneath her feet was sticky with whatever was hanging in the air, and Lucia thought she might be sick. She swallowed and licked her very dry lips in an effort to get the foul taste out of her mouth, The place was loud with the whirring of the various power tools used to inflict what must have been some degree of discomfort, if not outright pain, on the willing punters. A contingent of Vietnamese employees washed, scraped, preened and painted with astounding efficiency.
‘Can I help you?’ The woman behind the reception desk walked up to Lucia to greet her, though the look on her face was unmistakably one of suspicion. Unlike her workers, she looked like she definitely hailed from above the tropical belt. A wide, freckled face topped by a shock of frizzy, bright red hair, and complete with a well-rounded body draped in a turquoise floor-length tunic made for a striking look.
No wonder she thinks there’s something up, since I probably don’t look much like a customer, Lucia surmised, with a decidedly official expression on her face that wasn’t fooling anyone that she was there for a pamper.
Before Lucia could open her mouth to answer, a voice came from behind her. ‘Hi, Trish,’ said Trinh, who had just let herself into the shop.
The woman looked totally blank for a fraction of a second, after which her mouth started to stretch into a large, genuine grin. She opened her arms and gave Trinh a big squeeze of a hug, which the usually reserved detective sergeant reciprocated slightly reluctantly.
‘Cam! Sweetheart, I’m so sorry, I didn’t see you there. You alright?’ The effusive welcome was swiftly followed by a disapproving glance in Lucia’s direction, lest she should be under any illusion that she was off the hook.
‘I’m fine, thanks, Trish. Listen, can we talk somewhere in private?’ replied Trinh as she scanned the room with a police officer’s demeanour.
Trish evidently caught on to what was coming and ushered them to the back of the nail salon. ‘This way.’
The tiny box room at the back had a couple of chairs around a scruffy, heavily scratched table. Because of the tiny space, the chemical smell that permeated the main room was overpowering. Lucia coughed violently and mercifully only just stopped herself retching. Trinh scrunched up her nose but seemed to fare better.
Trish sat down on one of the chairs. ‘Sorry, I haven’t got enough seats in here. It’s practically a cupboard,’ she said apologetically.
‘It’s OK, we can stand,’ replied Trinh. ‘I imagine you’ve guessed why we’re here. This is Lucia, by the way,’ she added, pointing at her colleague. ‘You can trust her.’
Trish sized up Lucia with the same doubtful look she’d given her when she walked into the salon. After a few seconds, Trish’s hostility mellowed a little. She crossed her hands on her lap and let out a weary sigh. ‘OK, I’ll take your word for it, Cam. I just don’t want my dirty laundry aired in public, you know.’
‘It won’t be, I promise. We really want to help. Mum told me a bit about what’s going on, but I’d like to hear it from you, if that’s alright.’
Trish scratched her head and weighed up what to say. ‘I don’t even know where to start. Sometimes I think I’m just getting worked up for nothing.’
‘It’s not nothing if you’ve gone and told Mum about it,’ said Trinh sympathetically.
‘It’s something, that’s for sure. I’m not daft. It’s fishy, that’s what it is,’ said Trish with a frown. ‘Five girls in as many weeks. One day they’re here nice and early, the next day there’s no trace of them. I’ve tried calling them, but there’s either no answer, or it goes straight to voicemail. I’ve talked myself hoarse trying to get something out of the ones that are still here, but it’s like talking to a brick wall. They just shrug and say they haven’t the foggiest. They live in shared rooms, moving around all the time, so there’s no chance in hell I can go find them. Oh, I don’t know, Cam. I wouldn’t have stressed out your mum with it, but it isn’t right. One girl might do a runner, better pastures and all that, but five? One after the other? I’m worried, you know. I look after them, and I just don’t think they would scram just like that, without even letting me know they’re OK.’
Trish was by now out of breath, visibly distressed and on the brink of tears.
Lucia thought as fast as she could. ‘Can we speak to the girls?’ she asked.
‘Sure. Though I doubt they’ll talk to you, if they won’t talk to me,’ replied Trish.
‘Worth a try,’ said Trinh. ‘Come on, let’s see if we can get anywhere with this lot.’
The next hour or so was spent going around the salon in a generally futile attempt to extract information from people who either had none to impart or had very good reason not to. Lucia suspected the latter to be the case. There was a feeling of unease that permeated the place. The girls were mainly stony-faced as Lucia and Trinh took every one of them in turn and did their best to coax something – anything – out of them. It wasn’t a language barrier, since Trinh was there, but there was definitely a reluctance to engage.
‘We’re not getting anywhere, are we?’ said Trinh with considerable frustration after the last girl had trotted back to her workstation. ‘It’s doing my head in. Maybe they just haven’t got a clue.’
‘I doubt it. They look like they don’t want to talk,’ said Lucia decisively. ‘Let’s go back and speak to Trish.’
Back in the tiny office, Trish looked up expectantly as Trinh and Lucia walked in. ‘Any luck?’
‘None whatsoever, I’m afraid. Silence all round,’ said Trinh, pursing her lips in disappointment.
‘Thought as much. At least you tried. I don’t know where to go from here, to be honest,’ said Trish despondently. She fiddled with a lurid pink vape pen that was sitting on her desk, eventually gave in and took a deep drag. A faint, sickly-sweet aroma filtered through the chemical smell.
It wasn’t doing Lucia’s now delicate stomach much good. In an effort to distract her mind from the unpleasantness, she remembered an earlier conversation with Trinh. ‘Trish, you help your girls with their visas, is that right?’
‘Yeah, that’s right. A lot of them haven’t got very good English, and so I help them fill in the paperwork, that sort of stuff. They can’t afford a solicitor, so I do what I can. There’s the community centre close to here that helps out for free, but there’s a long waiting list, and the girls don’t always want to talk to a stranger.’
‘Are any of them in the middle of a visa application at the moment, do you know?’ asked Lucia, her synapses working overtime.
Trish knotted her eyebrows and thought hard. ‘Yes, as a matter of fact. Tien. I’m sure she mentioned it the other day. In fact, she said she doesn’t need me to fill in the forms with her, because she’s got herself a lawyer. Someone who said they’d do it for free. Yes, I remember now. She said she got an appointment at the community centre and had to take the morning off. Less work for me, anyway, I thought, so I didn’t pay much attention to it.’
Lucia banked the incipient idea that was taking shape in her mind and hoped to high heaven that she was on to something.
Chapter 21
‘So, what exactly are we looking for?’ asked Trinh with some confusion.
She and Lucia were staring at a pile of paper that Tien, the Vietnamese girl who worked for Tri
sh, had deposited in front of them. Tien had scrambled as soon as she’d arrived. No amount of persuasion from Trinh or Lucia got anything more out of her. Lucia knew how much effort Trish had had to put in for the girl to surrender a copy of her visa application to them, and there was no point in pressing the issue any further, lest they should spook the poor thing.
‘Remember what we found out at Creasy & Gotts? Genevieve Taylor used to do pro bono work. Visa applications at the Kentish Town community centre. That got me thinking. It was a bit of a long shot, but it’s worth a go. Let’s see what these forms say. If someone helped the applicant fill them in, their name should be recorded,’ said Lucia breathlessly. Her heart was pounding in her chest as she feverishly hoped for a favourable result.
Trinh and Lucia scanned the pages one by one until Trinh exclaimed triumphantly, ‘Here it is. You were right, Lucia. Genevieve Taylor’s the solicitor representing Tien. But what does that matter? Genevieve must have done countless applications for people through the community centre.’
‘Yes, that’s true. It doesn’t tell us much. I’d say, bank it for now and see if it throws anything up,’ replied Lucia with a slightly anguished frown. True, they’d got a result, but she had no idea what to make of it.
* * *
Later that day, Lucia and DCI Carliss sat opposite each other for a delayed breakfast in the local greasy spoon, just around the corner from the police station. It was the kind of place that merrily rolled out all-day fry-ups and cups of strong tea, and it was the favourite haunt of builders and alcoholic journalists looking for a saturated fat fix. The owner, Alex Georgiou, an indefatigably cheery middle-aged Greek man who had seen just about everything in his lifetime lorded it over the place in the knowledge that his customer base was both select and secure. You could be planning a murder on a whiteboard at Georgiou’s, and nobody would bat an eyelid, mused Lucia as she and the inspector tucked into their respective dishes. Carliss had predictably gone for the full English, complete with artery-clogging sausages and an addition of black pudding. Lucia had opted for a more moderate order of fried eggs on toast and strong coffee on the side.
