She had been nodded through, thanks to a glimpse of the LAPD badge she had never removed from her pocketbook, kept there well over a year since Katharine had knocked it up for her, reluctantly, using a 3D printer. Madison had solemnly promised that it was for one time only, that she had no other way of doing that story – on a sex trafficking ring operating out of Long Beach – and that she would destroy it as soon as the story was done. But a fake police ID belonging to a fictitious Officer Madison Halliday was too good an asset to throw away. Without telling Katharine, Madison had saved it for a rainy day. Like today.
So the woman she guessed she had spoken to earlier stayed with a phone cradled in her neck by the reservations lectern, serving as a traffic cop for a line of would-be diners, merely glanced up, clocked the badge, then mouthed and gestured her towards a downstairs room marked ‘Private’, next to the men’s and women’s bathrooms.
Inside was a bank of four television monitors, each one flicking at intervals between different angles and locations. She could see the long tables, the bar, the kitchen, a series of what looked like small lounges, bathed in the white light of karaoke screens, and the basin area of what she supposed was the women’s bathroom. So, she noted, cameras even there.
In a chair, eating a salad out of a plastic box, was a young, white man whose scraggly beard could have denoted either hipster or loser, it was hard to tell. Maddy decided it was he who had first picked up the phone when ‘Barbara’ had called a few minutes ago. That suggested a general dogsbody rather than a ‘head of security’. Whether that was good news or bad, it was too early to tell.
‘Hi there,’ she said, her voice self-consciously higher and lighter than normal, as if to stress that she was absolutely not the same person he had spoken to earlier. ‘I’m here to review again the footage from last night?’
He munched on a fork loaded with spinach leaves, a cherry tomato squirting from the left side of his mouth and onto his shirt. He nodded, too full of food to speak, then keyed a few strokes at his computer. A second or two later, the central and largest monitor was showing a sequence on fast rewind, jerky figures moving off and on stools, taking glasses from their lips and putting them down on the counter.
‘What are we looking at?’ Maddy asked, doing her best to sound no more than professionally curious.
‘This is the bar camera,’ salad boy said, about to take another bite, nodding towards the screen for emphasis. He pressed another button, the picture now displaying the timecode and the rest of the on-screen data that had been missing until then: 12.13 am, today’s date. ‘This is what your … this is what those guys were looking at before.’
The camera was above the bar, mounted, judging from the angle, high up on the right-hand wall. It revealed the bar staff in full face, two of them, but she could see the customers in profile only. At this moment it showed five people sitting on stools, three men and two women. Laboriously, starting at the left and moving rightward, Maddy fixed on each one in turn. Middle-aged man, possibly white; middle-aged man, Asian, could be Japanese, Chinese, Korean; both turned on their stools to face a woman in a black mini-dress, sheer sleeves, hair fair, almost silver on the screen, though that could be the lights. The picture was not sharp enough to be sure, but to Maddy it looked like a classic late night scene: two businessmen hitting on an attractive single woman. The men at least were smiling; the woman had a glass in her hand.
Next to the female drinker, though visible only in profile, was a younger man: white, mid-thirties, hair brown and cut short, well-built. He was talking to the last figure on the screen who, because she was seated at the curve of the bar, had her back to the camera. Distracted by the little ménage á trois at the other end, Maddy had not noticed her at all till now.
‘Can you freeze the picture? Just here.’
Maddy looked hard. The young woman was dressed in a fitted, sparkling top. Yesterday she’d have said that was not Abigail’s style at all. But a few hours ago she had seen items in Abigail’s closet that were just like it. The hair was the right colour, blonde, though you couldn’t tell if it was Abigail-blonde, full of the sun and fresh air, or the bottled variety. It was definitely the right length though. Still, the similarity ended there. This woman’s hair was dead straight, falling in a sheet, as if it had been ironed flat. Abigail never wore her hair like that.
‘The other guys looked at this too. It’s Abigail.’
The name, spoken by a stranger, broke Maddy out of her trance of concentration. She turned to the technician, still gesturing with his fork at the frozen image. She was about to snap at him, when she remembered who she was supposed to be. She was Madison Halliday, junior police officer on an errand. She was not Maddy Webb, sister. She looked back at the screen, telling herself that this was what happened in murder cases. The victim became public property, often referred to simply by their first name – especially, it had to be said, when the victim was young and female. She could picture the headlines and TV captions she had seen over the years. The search for Tanya’s killer. Will we ever know who killed Amanda? It was a journalistic tic, and she was no less guilty of it than the rest of them.
‘Is that what, um, my colleagues said too? That that’s Abigail?’
‘Yep.’ He took another bite. ‘And me too.’
Maddy stiffened. ‘You? What do you mean?’
‘Well, I’m not here all the time. But she’s one of the regulars. I mean, was one of the regulars. Sorry. It’s just so weird.’
‘I don’t follow.’
‘Someone being here and then the next day, they’re gone. I know they say death is part of life, but—’
‘No, I mean I don’t follow about her being one of the regulars.’
‘I explained it to your friends before. She was a regular here. In the KTV area, in the bar. Couple of nights a week, at least. Anyway, look. This is the bit I think you’re meant to look at.’
Maddy could hardly take in what she was hearing, his words ricocheting around her head, rebounding against the echo of Quincy all those hours ago. You don’t always know everything, Maddy. Not even about Abigail.
But now the monitor was showing her younger sister at a slightly clearer angle, because Abigail had turned a few degrees to speak to this man whom Maddy had branded a soldier of some kind. He was smiling, then giving a large nod. From the way Abigail’s back was moving, she would guess they were having an amicable conversation. Maybe flirting.
But then his posture stiffened. He leaned forward, said something that prompted Abigail to stand up and walk away. She disappeared out of shot on her right, then briefly appeared a half-second later in the far left of the screen, as if she had walked round the bar, past the soldier, though without looking at him, and out. The man downed his drink, scoped the room, once to his right, then to his left – where the middle-aged trio were still making each other smile – once more to his right, before placing a dollar bill on the counter and leaving too. According to the CCTV timecode that did not stop ticking, he followed Abigail out of the bar less than thirty seconds later. Out of the bar, out into the cold, LA night – and out, it seemed, to pursue Abigail.
Chapter 13
Leo Harris had sent texts, several direct messages via Weibo and, heaven help him, an email. Short of sending smoke signals from the Hollywood Hills, he didn’t know what more he could do. But Maddy had ignored them all.
It was, he reflected now – still wearing his suit, his feet up on the coffee table, his back slumped into the couch – not just sympathy for an ex-girlfriend in mourning. The term stopped him. Was she even an ex? Was that the right word, given what had happened to them? They had never had the break-up conversation; they had never really broken up. They had tried to ‘take things to the next level’ – they had moved in together – but that had not worked out and suddenly they were no longer together at all.
He never understood that dynamic, though he knew it was real. It was the same in politics. Pundits were always saying of this or t
hat initiative that it was high risk because, if it failed, there was no going back to the status quo ante. He would nod along, but truth was, he never completely got it. Why couldn’t they go back? OK, so they tried something else, it didn’t work out, back to square one. But no, square one would be blocked off, suddenly deemed inaccessible. The conventional wisdom was adamant on this point: advance and fail and there was no going back. In an election campaign and in romance, the same stubborn rule held. But he couldn’t tell you why.
Nor could he give a precise answer to the specific question of why living together had failed. He had been the one to push for it and while Maddy never quite said no, she did not quite say yes either. He had turned up at her apartment one Sunday morning with two lattes and thirty flat, self-assembly cardboard storage boxes: no more talking, let’s just get you packed up. He figured he would learn the lesson of their first night together. He had not asked her out on a date: if he had, she would only have said no. Instead, after some City Hall event, he had simply leaned in and kissed her. That’s how they had started: no process of deliberation, just action.
But it had not been easy: even staying the night was tricky with a woman who didn’t know how to sleep. For all that, he never lost his conviction that they would find their rhythm eventually. He had imagined coming home to Madison, turning the key in the lock and finding another person already there, the apartment already warm. He had even, God help him, imagined a child – a miniature bundle of their combined energy, talent and neuroses. A little girl probably, gorgeous but crazy.
Yet now he and Madison were barely in touch. Even at this moment, as she was reeling from the most unspeakable blow, he found himself unable to find the right words. No one should lose a loved one that young, was what he had left on her voicemail. Her laughter will live on. You’ll always hear it. That’s what he had texted. Trouble was, everything sounded like a presidential address following a natural disaster. He might have been in Vanity Fair’s list of Hottest Politicos Under Thirty-Five, but he already felt as if he’d been doing this too long.
Anyway, it wasn’t just sympathy for Madison that had lodged inside him. Guilt was gnawing at him too. Leo had seen the reported time of death and he had worked out, just as he felt sure Maddy had worked out, that at or very close to the moment when the beautiful life force that was Abigail Webb was being snuffed out, he and Maddy had been engaged in their usual dance: two parts combat to one part flirtation.
He had seen the way Maddy looked when she spotted him in the Mail Room. It was clear she’d have preferred he hadn’t been there. She had rebuffed his offer of unlimited access to Berger and had told him she didn’t want to be anywhere near him (or his balls, to be precise). After she had been forcibly introduced to the girl in the backless dress. Amber, wasn’t it?
He could survive banter like that; it was easier for him. He had stood there with … He closed his eyes. Jade. That was it. He had stood there with Jade while Maddy had been on her own. And gone home alone, back to that tiny one-room apartment they had briefly shared and which she had insisted on keeping, even when his own place had ample room for both of them. Now all she would remember was that, at the moment her sister was murdered, Leo Harris had not been kind or generous or a true comrade, there for her no matter what, but a bona fide asshole.
The eleven o’clock news was starting. He reached for the remote control. First story: budget crisis in Sacramento. Second story: big movie star divorce. Third: Abigail.
He cranked up the volume, far louder than he needed it.
A major development in the hunt for the killer of twenty-two-year-old Abigail Webb tonight. KTLA News correspondent Ryan Christie has that story. Ryan?
‘Thanks, Jacqui. LAPD sources tonight telling us of a potential breakthrough in their inquiry into the death of the young woman who, as we’ve been reporting throughout the day here on KTLA, was found dead from a massive suspected overdose of the drug heroin in the early hours of this morning, an overdose police believe was forced on her. Sources now telling KTLA News they believe Abigail could have been the victim of a sexual encounter that went tragically wrong. One official hinting that Abigail Webb may have known her killer and have been with him consensually when events took their fatal turn. Jacqui?’
And, Ryan, any word from the police about a possible suspect?
‘Jacqui, police are telling KTLA News tonight that they are increasingly confident that they now know who they’re looking for and that, to quote one official, they could be “closing in” very soon.’
Thanks, Ryan. For KTLA News, Ryan Christie reporting there. Coming up after the break, why those lanterns for Chinese New Year could soon be—
Leo hit the mute button and stared straight ahead. He knew some of the effect this would have on Maddy. She’d be distraught at her sister being discussed this way in public, of course. But would it make it worse, to know that Abigail might have trusted the man who killed her, that she might even have made herself vulnerable to him sexually? Was that more or less terrible than the thought that she had been murdered by a complete stranger? Maybe it made no difference. Abigail was gone.
But surely there would be comfort in hearing that the police would soon be closing in on the guilty man. They clearly had someone in mind. There was no way they’d have briefed that otherwise. Perhaps it would be a cause of relief for Maddy and the rest of the Webb family that justice would soon be done.
He reached for his phone, to try her one more time. She surely knew about this development already. The police were bound to have notified the family before going public with such news. Although where the LAPD were concerned, you could never take anything for granted.
He looked over towards the window, remembering his conversation with the mayor en route to Sacramento. Leo had tried to argue that there were political risks in a murder inquiry with a young, attractive victim whose sister was in a position to make a lot of noise. He half-believed it too, even if Berger had seen through him pretty fast. Still, there was no doubt it was better for the campaign if the hunt was over. One less thing to worry about. He hit ‘M’ on his keypad. Berger answered after a half-ring.
‘Just seen the eleven,’ Leo began. ‘That’s pretty good for us.’
‘Yep. I saw it too. It’s excellent. Like I always say, Leo. Bowling ball.’
Leo shook his head with an exasperated smile and repeated with faux-weariness, ‘You think it’s coming at you, but nine times out of ten it rolls into the gutter.’
‘That’s it. Nine times out of ten.’ The mayor sounded as if he was stretching, arms aloft, ahead of a big yawn. The voice of contentment and relief. Leo wondered if he was at home or … somewhere else.
‘And the police say they could be “closing in”.’
‘Yep. With the CCTV pictures, I don’t think it’ll be long. Your friend can sleep a bit easier. Get some rest, Leo. Big day tomorrow.’
Leo hung up, allowing himself to feel some of his boss’s pleasure. He was right about the bowling ball. So often you’d fret and angst over a problem that, in the end, just rolled out of your path altogether. The hard part was knowing which ball was the tenth.
He went to the kitchen, plucking a beer from the only inhabited shelf of his fridge. As he cracked it open, he returned to the living room, standing by the window with its shimmering view of the Hollywood lights. He took a glug and as the alcohol made contact with his brain cells, he could feel his brow furrowing.
With the CCTV pictures, I don’t think it’ll be long.
He picked up the TV remote and jabbed at the rewind button, stopping at the smooth, tanned face of Ryan Christie, standing outside the LAPD headquarters. He listened closely to every word. As he thought, no mention of CCTV pictures.
He knocked back another slug of beer. That the mayor was privy to more information than a KTLA News reporter was no surprise. That the LAPD would keep him informed during a high-profile investigation was no scandal.
No, what worried Leo Harris, th
e mayor’s closest and most senior aide, was that the mayor had kept this information to himself. He had rarely, in fact never, done that before; not once that Leo could think of. So why would he do it now, over the murder of Abigail Webb? What secret was Richard Berger hiding?
Chapter 14
The night had brought no calm. Earlier, Maddy had entertained the perverse thought that the night after the death of her sister might at last bring sleep. If she was sleepless when she had nothing to worry about, then perhaps the reverse might be true, a great trauma inducing slumber? She didn’t expect it to be peaceful or serene, of course not. But some kind of neurological shutdown associated with grief, an anaesthetized unconsciousness – she’d have accepted that.
She had done everything to prepare for such an unfamiliar visitor. The blackout curtains which had been a gift from Quincy were drawn. She’d turned off the computer an hour before bedtime, like the books say. (In truth, if you counted her repeated returns to the machine, checking the KTLA and LA Times websites one last time and then one more last time, it was closer to thirty-five minutes.) She even found the device that played gentle, soothing sounds – ocean breezes, water lapping against the shore – that had been a gift from Abigail.
But her mind refused to switch off, its internal screen, like that of her computer, sparking to full brightness at the slightest movement.
Instead she spent a long half-hour, or maybe it was an hour, holding that photograph, staring by turns at her beautiful mother and her two sisters, the youngest just six years old, apparently brimming with happiness, her life stretching ahead of her. She could hear Abigail’s voice, sometimes adult, sometimes infant. For one pleasingly familiar moment, the voice spoke to her in the plaintive whine of a teenager. ‘Madd-eeee, when are we going out?’
But then she heard the sound she couldn’t bear, the one she had fought so hard to lock away: the childish howl of the six-year-old Abigail, aghast at what she had witnessed her fourteen-year-old sister do. Madison could hear it now, loudly, tearing through the room. The pain of that little girl, pain that Madison knew she had caused.
The 3rd Woman Page 10
