Danny frowned. ‘But Roxanne said a body had been found.’ He nodded towards the door through which the reporter had departed, betraying a kind of nervous excitement Grace had observed many times in people on the periphery of a major enquiry. ‘That’s really terrible. But it’s not Polly?’ he asked. ‘You’ve not found her?’
‘We’ll be releasing an official statement later,’ Grace told him.
‘What was the reporter talking to you about, Danny?’ asked Lance.
‘She said a girl had been murdered but she didn’t know who it was. She wanted to know if I’d heard anything.’
‘And had you?’
‘No. Do you know who it is?’
Lance ignored the question. ‘So why did Roxanne think you might know?’
Danny looked at them as if they were a bit slow. ‘Because everyone comes in here. And Polly’s a friend. I mean, we’re friendly.’
When Grace had noticed the young man standing in the shop doorway and watching the students eat lunch the other day, she’d assumed he’d be all but invisible to them, but she reminded herself that that might not be the case at all. ‘How well do you know Polly?’ she asked.
‘She comes in regularly, and we bump into each other in Wivenhoe occasionally.’
‘Is that where you live?’ asked Grace.
‘Yes.’
‘When did you last see her?’ asked Lance.
Danny thought for a moment, as if the question were unexpected. ‘The end of last week. She came in to talk to me.’
‘Friday? Saturday?’ pressed Lance.
‘Friday probably.’
‘What did you talk about?’
‘Nothing much. I seem to remember she needed some books for the summer vacation.’
‘Did you ever meet outside the bookshop? Apart from bumping into each other, I mean.’
Danny shook his head.
‘And that’s all you’ve told Roxanne Carson?’
‘Yes.’
Grace saw that Lance’s questions were making Danny anxious, and tried to lighten the tone. ‘Do you like working here?’ she asked. ‘You must be right in the hub of things on campus.’
‘I love books.’
‘So are you studying for a degree?’
He seemed pleased by the question, but shook his head. ‘My mum was ill and I had to look after her, couldn’t stay on at school. But I’ve been working here nearly two years now.’
‘How old are you, Danny?’ asked Lance.
‘Twenty-three. This is like having my own personal library.’
‘And you get to know your customers?’
Danny nodded, his eyes wide and serious. ‘I see their names on the student discount cards. Not everyone’s as nice as Polly, though.’
‘And what is she like?’
‘Lovely. Bubbly. A bit disorganised.’ Danny smiled, a sweet smile, as if he liked talking about her. ‘She left her phone here on the counter once. That’s how we got chatting.’
‘Does she have a boyfriend?’ Grace asked, more interested in his reaction than the reply. ‘Did you see her around with anyone in particular?’
Danny shrugged with what looked like genuine unconcern. ‘Sometimes. No one steady, though. Not that I noticed, anyway.’
‘But you must notice all kinds of stuff,’ she said. ‘Perfect observation post here!’
Danny peered at her as if uncertain whether or not she was mocking him. ‘I usually read when it’s quiet.’ He made his reply sound like a rebuke. He nodded towards the pony-tailed man at the back of the shop. ‘The manager likes all the assistants to be well-read.’
‘But you’d notice if anyone was bothering one of the women on campus, if someone was having problems or disagreements? Anything we should know about?’
He shrugged. ‘I haven’t seen anything like that. Sorry.’
‘OK.’ Grace handed him a card and gave him a friendly smile. ‘In case anything occurs to you later.’
He accepted the card and placed it carefully into a wallet he took from his back pocket.
‘Did Roxanne speak to your manager as well?’ asked Lance.
Danny shook his head, his eyes on Grace as he put away his wallet. The door opened and a group of students entered, milling out to different sections of the shop. Danny’s attention moved to them, and Grace nodded to Lance: they were done here.
‘Thanks, mate,’ said Lance.
‘You’re welcome. Anything I can do to help.’
Lance made as if to leave, then turned back. ‘There is, actually. We’d really appreciate it if you didn’t talk too much to the media. Sometimes that can really get in the way of an investigation, and I know you wouldn’t want that. I can tell that you want Polly to come home safely just as much as we do, right?’
‘Right!’
‘Great. See you around.’
‘Bye!’ Danny smiled and gave a little wave.
Outside, Grace looked back, but the young man was walking away with one of his customers.
‘Do you think he was holding out on us?’ asked Lance.
‘What about?’
‘About how much he really told your friend Roxanne. Do you think she’d have slipped him some cash?’
‘I thought the opposite, that maybe he was bigging up the little he did know.’
‘Why?’
‘However he likes to tell it, he’s always going to be an outsider, isn’t he?’ she said. ‘I wonder how well he and Polly really knew each other.’
‘She’s a pretty girl. I doubt he’d stand much of a chance with her.’
‘No.’
‘Oh well, just so long as he hasn’t sold some kind of story to the tabloids,’ said Lance. ‘We don’t want to get caught out.’
Grace didn’t care to imagine what Keith’s reaction would be were he to learn some vital piece of evidence from a newspaper headline rather than from his own troops. As they passed the cafe they’d seen Roxanne go into, Grace glanced inside, but there was no sign of her.
‘Can you ask Roxanne? Find out what people are telling her?’ asked Lance.
Grace shook her head. ‘No way. I can’t be seen talking to her. You saw the look Keith gave me this morning. Besides,’ she teased, ‘you’d probably have greater powers of persuasion!’
‘How come?’
‘She’s been asking me whether or not you’re single!’
‘You’re kidding, right?’
She laughed with him, but the illusion of intimacy was fleeting, a sad reminder that access to the only old and familiar friend she had here in Essex was now barred, if only temporarily. If Roxanne had paid Danny for any kind of exclusive, then of course she was only doing her job, but it increased the distance between them.
Grace and Lance had to ask for directions before successfully locating the dean’s airy and well-maintained corner office. They had asked to speak to a student co-ordinator in Dr Beeston’s department, but their request had been passed further up the chain and they’d been given an appointment with the dean of faculty. Simon Bradford was a pleasant man in his early fifties, dressed in the kind of classy lightweight suit that suggested a few semesters spent at an American university. He quickly introduced the elegant, bird-like woman beside him as Fiona Johnson, the director of communications. It was clear that the university was not taking lightly the likelihood that one of their students had been murdered, despite the somewhat lackadaisical reaction to Polly’s disappearance earlier in the week.
Lance explained that because they were still awaiting both formal identification and cause of death, the information they were about to divulge must remain highly confidential. Nevertheless, they were currently investigating the murder of Rachel Moston. The dean was well prepared and quickly pulled up her student profile on his computer while Ms Johnson expressed appropriate sentiments of regret.
‘Where did this take place?’ was her first question, and Grace could see her instant relief when Lance told them that the body had been discovered early this morning not on cam
pus but five miles away in Colchester town centre.
Dr Bradford, scanning his screen, shook his head sadly. ‘No problems this end,’ he said. ‘Rachel Moston had consistently good grades throughout her three years here, good attendance record and no academic warnings. Such a waste, a real tragedy. I can only feel for her family.’
‘What about her relationships with fellow students? Any close friends we might speak to?’
‘You’d have to ask one of her tutors.’
‘If you could you let us have a list of her year group,’ said Lance.
While Dr Bradford tapped at his keyboard, ready to print the document, Grace smiled at Fiona Johnson. ‘I just wanted to say how helpful Student Services have been over Polly Sinclair,’ she said lightly.
‘Has she still not turned up?’ Ms Johnson matched her conversational tone, but Grace found it impossible to believe that the presence here of the university’s director of communications was unrelated to the fact that now the fate of two students would be front-page news.
‘No. Her parents are extremely concerned, as are we.’ She turned to the dean. ‘Might we have a list of all Rachel Moston’s tutors as well, please? Who would it be best to speak to about her?’
A printer at the side of the room hummed into life, and Dr Bradford let Fiona Johnson be the one to rise and fetch the year group list, which she handed to Lance. Seconds later another sheet rolled through, which Ms Johnson handed to Grace. There were seven names, amongst them that of Dr Matt Beeston. Silently Grace passed it on to Lance.
‘I’m afraid we have to ask, but is there anyone on this list we ought to be paying attention to?’ Grace made the question sound entirely routine. ‘Any issues over pastoral care, or any complaints against any of these tutors?’
She nearly missed the hint of warning in Dr Bradford’s glance at Ms Johnson. It was little more than a raised eyebrow and a dip of the chin, but it was there, and Grace wondered what they were hiding. It made her think of Colin, her old DCI, and how desperately he’d hated being put on the spot like this, how much virtually any large institution resented its boat being rocked, its self-serving procedures being forcibly picked apart.
‘Had there been any formal complaints made in relation to the conduct of university staff,’ Ms Johnson answered, ‘we would have taken appropriate action and it would be a matter of record.’ She turned and locked the dean into a moment of silent accord before turning back to the detectives. ‘There is no record of any formal complaint made against any of these faculty staff.’
So why, wondered Grace, are you at such pains to spell it out? And why had Matt Beeston been so jolly keen to remind them that Polly wasn’t one of his students? She met Ms Johnson’s level gaze. ‘Anything off the record we should know about?’ she asked in as friendly a tone as she could manage. ‘This is a murder enquiry.’
‘I really wish we could offer more help.’ Ms Johnson rose to her feet, smoothing her skirt and avoiding eye contact. ‘Don’t hesitate to contact me if there’s anything else we can do.’ She extended her hand: the interview was over.
SEVEN
The entire team, including the civilian support staff, had crowded into the main Major Investigation Team office for the first briefing when Keith returned in the afternoon with the post-mortem results. Everyone was keen to get the investigation fully launched, and Grace, too, relished the heady adrenaline surge, all too aware of the long days of hard work, little sleep and badly digested sandwiches, coffee and pizza that probably lay ahead.
Duncan added a photograph of a bottle of Fire’n’Ice vodka to the board, then perched on the nearest desk, waiting for Keith to begin. Everyone had been told about the existence of the bottle, but no one other than those who’d been in the forensic tent at six o’clock that morning knew about its intimate connection to the victim, nor had been shown the relevant crime scene photographs, which Keith had locked away in his office.
‘Right,’ Keith began. ‘Rachel Moston. Twenty-one. Just finished her final-year exams and, according to her parents, had a good placement fixed up with a London law firm. Regular boyfriend who we’ve confirmed was in Nottingham last night, taking part in a university judo competition. According to him, she planned to go with friends to the Blue Bar last night.’
Mention of the Blue Bar sent a ripple of anticipation around the room, though no one yet had the balls to ask if they were officially linking Rachel’s murder to Polly Sinclair’s disappearance.
Accurately reading their minds, Keith sighed. ‘Rachel Moston’s debit card transactions confirm she was there. She settled a fairly hefty bar bill a little before midnight.’
Grace was all too uncomfortably aware that her own name would show up in the list of electronic purchases from last night, but swiftly decided she could inform Keith of that later. Meanwhile she did her best to hide a ripple of shock: had she and Roxanne rubbed shoulders with the dead girl hours – minutes, even – before she was killed?
‘Preliminary autopsy results suggest death was caused by ligature strangulation,’ Keith continued. ‘No indication of recent sexual activity. We’re fast-tracking material from her fingernails, but she has no obviously defensive bruising or wounds. We’re also waiting for toxicology. Stomach contents, supported by her bar bill, suggest she’d had a fair amount of white wine. Impossible to say if she’d added any vodka to the mix.’ Keith looked up from his notes. ‘So, last movements. Does anyone know where she was heading when she left the bar? Where did she go between leaving the bar and the discovery of her body on the demolition site just before six a.m.?’
Wendy raised a hand, and Keith gave way to the crime scene manager. ‘We can’t say for certain that’s where she was killed,’ she said. ‘Nor what time the body was left there. But the perpetrator obviously had time to arrange the body without being disturbed. Either the streets were quiet by then, or he’s a pretty cool customer.’
Keith nodded. ‘From the moment Rachel left the bar, I want to know where she went, when and with whom.’
‘We’re compiling lists of her friends and of everyone who was at the bar last night,’ Lance told him.
‘What about the bottle?’ Keith asked.
‘It was half empty, still capped. The remaining contents were vodka,’ said Wendy. ‘No prints, which suggests it was wiped clean. We’ve fast-tracked swabs for DNA. We also recovered some fibres from her clothing.’
‘Fire’n’Ice has been on special offer at Tesco since last Friday,’ said Duncan. ‘Their superstore has shifted over two hundred bottles of the stuff this week alone.’
‘We’ll have to check out every purchase,’ sighed Keith. ‘And then tie them up to any available in-store CCTV. Start with the previous twenty-four hours.’
‘Yes, boss,’ Duncan said happily.
Grace had noticed on her first day how her colleagues had smiled at one another, and she had now discovered the reason why: while Duncan undoubtedly enjoyed focusing on this kind of data-gathering for its own sake, it also meant he had to work closely with the team’s civilian case manager, Joan, for whom he apparently yearned silently and painfully. Catching Lance’s eye, Grace took his covert wink to mean they were all rooting for this office romance.
‘There’s also a mini-market on campus that stocks the brand,’ Duncan added, oblivious. ‘They’re sending us their data.’
‘Rachel could have bought the vodka herself,’ Grace pointed out.
‘Unlikely she’d take it with her to a bar,’ said Lance.
‘Find out if anyone saw her carrying something that could’ve been a bottle,’ ordered Keith. ‘And, if we assume it was our matey, the killer, who brought it to the party, did anyone notice someone with a bottle?’
‘Was it organised or a chance encounter?’ Grace asked. ‘And if it was planned, then was Rachel the intended victim?’
Keith nodded. ‘Where and when did they meet? Was matey in the bar? Hanging about outside? If so, did anyone notice him there? How did he know where she’d b
e?’
‘He wiped the bottle, took time to stage the body,’ observed Lance. ‘That suggests confidence. Has he done this before?’
‘He may have just got lucky,’ warned Duncan. Grace knew he was right: they’d all been told often enough how easily an investigating officer, seduced by a narrative that slotted evidence together too neatly, could make fatal mistakes.
‘We can’t rule it out,’ said Keith. ‘So check the National Injuries Database, and with Interpol.’
Lance, pleased, made a note.
‘There’s still her underwear,’ said Wendy. ‘We haven’t found her knickers yet.’
‘He’s kept them as a trophy!’ said Lance, and was treated to a withering glance from his boss.
‘Finally, I want to know how he left the scene, and where he went then,’ ended Keith.
Aware that Lance had been fizzing with impatience to share their discoveries, Grace glanced at him; he nodded back encouragingly.
‘Boss?’ she began.
‘Yes?’
‘One of Rachel’s law lecturers was Matt Beeston.’ She didn’t need to spell out the connection to Polly Sinclair. ‘She was in his seminar group.’
‘Find out where he was last night,’ Keith ordered. He turned to Duncan. ‘See if he ever bought a bottle of Fire’n’Ice.’
‘There’s no record of any formal complaint against him from a student,’ Grace continued. ‘But it seemed to us like the university authorities were going to a lot of trouble to spell that out to us.’
‘Well, that’s only to be expected, isn’t it?’ asked Keith, frowning impatiently.
Grace feared she was wasting his time: it wasn’t enough to say she’d had a strong feeling there was something Ms Johnson and the dean weren’t saying, especially when it might not even be about Dr Beeston. ‘Sure,’ she said, letting it go.
‘There’s one more angle to look at,’ Lance jumped in. ‘Polly and Rachel had the same landlord.’
‘Pawel Zawodny?’ exclaimed Keith.
‘He owns three properties in Wivenhoe, and two are rented out to dead or missing girls!’
‘OK. See if you can place him in town last night.’
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