Cruel as the Grave
Page 4
Swilley introduced herself, and Jilly Lawrence, who she had brought with her – one of the uniforms assigned to the investigation. It was often useful to have the visible sign of the law at one’s side on these occasions.
Jerrika looked at them sharply, took the trouble to examine their warrant cards, then stepped back to let them in. ‘I suppose it’s about Kelly-Ann and Erik? It’s terrible. We heard at the gym – well, someone said he’d been murdered. Is that right?’
She had a quick, impatient way of talking that seemed like a mannerism. Certainly there was nothing nervous about her – she seemed supremely self-assured.
‘How did you hear?’ Swilley wanted to know. ‘Who told you?’
‘The manager, Deedee, knows someone who lives just round the corner from Erik in Holland Road. She got it from one of the reporters, and she knew Erik worked at Gillespie’s so she rang Deedee. And Deedee came up and told me.’
‘Because she knew Kelly-Ann shares a flat with you?’
Jerrika gave a snorting laugh. ‘She rents a room in my flat,’ she corrected. ‘It pisses me off when she calls herself my flatmate. She’s my lodger, that’s all. Do you want to sit down?’
She had led them into a kitchen-cum-living-room, tidy and clean, but small, and not luxurious. The fitments were old, the furniture flatpack-cheap, and the paint job looked home done. There was a sofa and a TV in the sitting part, and the kitchen end had a breakfast bar and two high stools.
‘Do you want coffee or anything?’ Jerrika asked.
‘No, thanks,’ Swilley said.
She and Lawrence sat on the sofa, and after a moment’s hesitation, Jerrika pushed magazines and a box of tissues off the coffee table facing them and perched on that, as if she might get up any minute and – yes, prowl.
‘How long has Kelly-Ann been your lodger?’
‘Two months. Since she started at Harmonies. Deedee knew from the interview that she needed a room to take the job, and she knew my previous lodger had left.’ She shrugged. ‘I’d sooner not have a lodger, but I can’t afford the mortgage without. This place is small, but prices round here are monster. There’s only this room and the two bedrooms. And the bathroom, of course. My previous lodger, Alex, was a research student at the Charing Cross and he worked in a bar in the evenings, so we hardly ever saw each other, which was perfect. It hasn’t been so good, I have to tell you, with Kelly-Ann, especially working in the same place as well. I can’t get away from her.’
‘She’s a beauty therapist at Harmonies, I understand,’ Swilley said.
The snort again. ‘No, I’m a beauty therapist. Kelly-Ann’s a manicurist. She paints nails, in other words. But that’s what she always does – talks herself up. So suddenly she’s my flatmate and suddenly she’s a therapist!’
‘It’s natural, I suppose, to want to present yourself in a good light,’ said Swilley. ‘Maybe there’s a little hero worship of you there as well?’ She thought a bit of flattery might oil the wheels.
‘Oh yes, she’d like to be me,’ Jerrika said impatiently. ‘But it takes years to learn all the techniques and get qualified. Her sort just want the glamour without the hard work.’
‘You don’t like her?’ Swilley suggested.
Jerrika made a restless movement of her shoulders. ‘Oh, she’s all right, I suppose. I don’t dislike her. It’s just that she’s a clinger, and a fantasist. And a spouter – oh my God!’ She rolled her eyes. ‘She never stops talking. Every detail of her boring little life, all her girlish hopes and dreams. She’s a bit pathetic, if you want to know the truth. But I’m not her mum – I shouldn’t have to look after her.’
‘Speaking of her mum, so you know where her parents are?’
‘Her dad’s dead. Her mum – you see, this is what she does,’ she interrupted herself with an exasperated look. ‘She told me her parents owned this big farm in Hertfordshire, made it sound like Downton Abbey, and it turns out her mum lives in a house near Barnet and keeps chickens in the back garden.’
Lawrence asked for the address and after an impatient search in several drawers Jerrika provided it.
‘Tell me about her relationship with Erik Lingoss,’ Swilley said.
‘Relationship! Well, I suppose she thought it was one. She’d only been seeing him a few weeks.’
‘Was it a sexual relationship?’
‘I don’t think Erik has any other sort. He came mooching upstairs to Harmonies as soon as he heard there was a new girl, and Kelly-Ann was so green she just fell into his arms. He always had to have any new girl that started.’
‘Did he try it on with you?’
‘Yeah, when I first joined, but he didn’t get anywhere. I had a boyfriend, thank you very much. Still have. I told him I wasn’t interested and that was that.’
‘But Kelly-Ann fell in love with him.’
‘Well, he is gorgeous-looking. And a terrific body. I mean, what was not to like? But he was just using her for sex, if you want my opinion.’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘Because he never took her out anywhere, not after the first date. He just sent for her to his flat when he wanted sex. But she was all starry-eyed about him so she didn’t see it.’
‘I suppose she told you all about it?’
Jerrika rolled her eyes. ‘Oh my God! Spouter, remember? I got sick of the sound of it – Erik this and Erik that. Every bloody word he said to her, every smile, every touch. I had to stop her giving me a blow-by-blow account of how they made love.’ Now she did get up and pace. ‘She was going to move in with him, and then they were going to get married. Talk about fantasy land! They were going to open their own gym and beauty club. Erik was saving up for it. She’d do the beauty and he’d do the fitness. She had their whole lives mapped out. Every detail. Three kids and roses round the door. I had to make a rule that when I was in my room with the door shut, she wasn’t to disturb me, otherwise she’d have been rabbiting on all night.’
‘So tell me about yesterday. What time did you get home?’
She came back for that and sat down again. ‘I suppose I got here about seven or a bit before. She was sitting at the breakfast bar with her head on her arms sobbing.’
‘Was she at work yesterday?’
‘Yeah, but she was on her half day. She finished one o’clock. She told me she was seeing Erik in the evening, and she was spending the afternoon tarting herself up for him. She said she was going to ask him about moving in with him. I said good luck with that! Anyway, I get home and there she is in floods because he’s dumped her – by text. I mean, who does that? Then she’s gone over there – to plead with him, I s’pose – and he wouldn’t even speak to her.’
‘That was cruel, wasn’t it?’
She shrugged. ‘Yeah, well, it’s what you get if you make yourself a doormat. I told her he wasn’t worth it, told her to pull herself together. She was sobbing about going back and pleading with him some more. I told her if she did that she could find herself somewhere else to live, I wasn’t going to live under the same roof with someone who had no self-respect.’
‘Did that help?’
Jerrika shrugged. ‘Just made her cry more. But someone had to say it. Anyway, I had a date, so I had to get myself ready. I went out about eight, met my boyfriend and some mates at Roxies in Hammersmith.’
‘And where was she then?’
‘She’d gone into her room and closed the door. I shouted out goodbye, but she didn’t answer.’
‘And what time did you get home?’
‘About half past eleven, I suppose.’
‘Did you see Kelly-Ann, or speak to her?’
‘No, her door was closed. The light was on, and I could hear her watching something from inside, that was all.’
‘You didn’t think to see if she was all right?’
She gave them a defiant look. ‘The rule works both ways. No bothering each other if the door’s shut. If I broke it, she’d think she could as well and I’d never get away from
her.’
‘So you don’t actually know for sure where she was all evening.’
Jerrika looked surprised. ‘Where else would she be? She was crying her eyes out in her room.’ Swilley looked at her steadily, and her eyes opened wide. ‘No-o!’ she said in a shocked and excited husk. ‘You don’t mean …?’ She stared from Swilley to Lawrence and back. She was thinking. Then she shook her head. ‘No,’ she said, almost regretfully. ‘Not Kelly-Ann. She wouldn’t have the balls. In any case, she was in love with him.’
‘Love and hate are very close.’
But she shook her head again. ‘No. Look, Erik’s tall, and just about the fittest bloke I know. I’ve massaged him a couple of times, and he’s got muscles like you wouldn’t believe. He’d have nothing to fear from her. She’s got arms like spaghetti. She doesn’t exercise. Even if she tried to hit him, he could hold her off with one hand and eat Chinese with chopsticks with the other. In any case, I know she just wouldn’t. She’s the wettest, wussiest girl in London.’
‘Well,’ said Swilley, getting up, ‘thank you for your input. I’d just like to have a look at her room, if that’s all right.’
Jerrika shrugged. ‘Help yourself.’
‘Have you been in there since yesterday?’
‘No, why would I?’
Jerrika had the larger, front room with the bay window. The kitchen-living room was the back addition room, overlooking the garden, and in between was what would have been a child’s bedroom, so it was very small, about ten feet square. It contained a queen-sized bed, a Lloyd Loom chair, a wardrobe and a tall chest of drawers. The furniture was all old brown stuff that had been painted in pale yellow to make it look more modern. The bed was unmade, and half hidden under a drift of screwed-up tissues. There were clothes everywhere, bulging out of the wardrobe and drawers, on the chair, on the floor. On the top of the chest of drawers pots and tubes of make-up and other beauty products sprawled capless with more smeary tissues and cotton-wool pads. Swilley noted that some of the bottles were Harmonies branded, presumably either free samples or purloined from work. And amongst the room’s detritus were empty tumblers, coffee mugs, and crumby plates. A troupe of mice could live happily in here for months – and, given all the scope for hiding, might already be doing so.
On the bed the two pillows had been dragged together in the centre for viewing comfort, and in the space where one of them had been there was an empty half-litre carton of Ben and Jerry’s Chocolate Fudge Brownie with a spoon sticking out of it. Beside it was a plate that from the look and smell had contained buttered toast.
Swilley nudged Lawrence and gestured to them. From her long experience in the Job, she knew that when crossed in love, men turned for comfort to drink and women to food, typically ice cream, bread, cake and chocolate. A girl whose boyfriend has just dumped her might well go home to cry her eyes out, and sit up in bed watching Sleepless in Seattle while ingesting large quantities of ice cream and toast. But would a not-very-bright girl concocting an alibi think of that, and fabricate the evidence?
Swilley didn’t think so.
They came out of the room, closing the door behind them, and Jerrika accosted them restlessly.
‘What happens now?’ she demanded. ‘I mean, do I have to get a new lodger, is what I’m asking, because I can’t make the mortgage alone, and it takes time to find someone. And what about her stuff? If she’s going to jail or something – do you think she did it? I s’pose you can’t tell me, but do you think she’s coming back?’
‘Oh yes,’ Swilley said. ‘I think she will be.’
She couldn’t tell whether Jerrika looked relieved or disappointed. It’s like that with cats.
‘There was no laptop or tablet, and no diary or anything like that, so whatever she’s got it’s on her mobile,’ Swilley told Slider. ‘We’ve got that so we can go through it. But honestly, I’m starting to think she’s telling the truth.’
Slider nodded. He trusted Swilley’s instincts. ‘The fact remains she was on the spot, she has the motive, and she has no alibi. And as far as we know she’s the only one with keys. We’ll be under pressure to keep going with her. We’ve got to find another suspect.’
‘Yes, boss. Well, we’ve hardly started yet. Seems as though he was a good-looking guy and a womanizer, so he must have had enemies.’
‘Yes, and there’s the question of that cash. There may be a simple reason, but I’d like to know where it came from. And where his mobile went to. Plenty to look into.’
‘What’ll you do with Kelly-Ann?’
‘Oh, I think we’ll let her go on bail. Start finding out who Lingoss’s friends and acquaintances were. There was no break-in, so it must have been someone he knew.’
‘Yes, boss. The canvass might still turn something up. Pity the flats had no security cameras, but there are the shops opposite. We need to know who was coming and going. And we can look into his finances.’
‘We’ll do all those things, but not tonight. Go home, Norma.’
‘You too, sir,’ she grinned.
The damp, foggy night let him through reluctantly, halation running the street lamps together and smearing the traffic lights against the darkness like sticky sweets. When he let himself into the house, Jumper reached him first, gave him the furry figure-eight around the legs and then posed, tail vertical and back lightly arched for his caress. Joanna was not far behind, but arrived third, after the baby-to-be. He had to embrace her at arms’ length.
‘How are you feeling?’ he asked.
‘Large,’ she said wearily. Her hair smelled of outdoors, and her face was cold.
‘You’ve only just got in,’ he deduced. ‘You look tired.’
She stepped back. ‘I am. It’s natural after a day’s work. Aren’t you tired?’
He managed not to say, I’m not pregnant. He hadn’t wanted her to take the sessions at Denham – music for the new Star Wars film – so close to her due date. He had half expected the fixer to send her home when he saw the size of her. But they paid very well, and there would be royalties later, too; and apart from the money, she loved playing. She especially loved doing session work: meeting old friends, being with her peers, and the whole professional atmosphere of it. He understood. He loved his work, though it distressed him on occasions, and wore him down on others. When he had remonstrated with her – as tactfully as he could – about working up to the wire, she had said, with an air of curbing impatience, ‘If you’re worried I’ll go into labour, I could hardly do it anywhere safer. Surrounded by ninety intelligent people, under bright lights, and no more than five miles from the nearest hospital. It might be embarrassing, but it wouldn’t be dangerous.’ And when he’d opened his mouth to argue further, she’d said impatiently, ‘What if I’m here at home, alone, and I slip on the garden path or fall down the stairs?’ So he’d been forced to shut up.
He said, ‘Yes, I’m tired. Can I ask you just once, and then I promise I won’t go on about it – you’re not overdoing it, are you? You don’t have to do these sessions.’
‘If you take on the work, you don’t let people down.’
‘I know, but they can get another violinist. I can’t get another you. No music is worth risking your health for.’
‘It’s John Williams!’ she said with mock indignation. ‘Proper music, musicians’ music.’ He gave her a steady look, and she sighed. ‘If I admit that there is a lot of scrubbing involved, and that I am tired, and a little bit of me wishes I didn’t have to go in tomorrow, will you let it drop?’
He drew her to him again, and let her prop her big belly on him. He kissed the top of her head and said, ‘Just promise me you won’t take any chances. If you get a pain don’t go heroically toughing through it.’
‘I promise. Anything like a pain and I’m out of there like a scalded chihuahua. I won’t even play to the end of the bar.’
‘Is there anything to eat?’ he asked, to show he was keeping his word. ‘Or shall I go out for something?’
‘I’ll do it,’ he said. ‘You sit down.’
She laughed. It made her tired face light up. ‘What makes you think that sitting down is a treat? You try it with a watermelon stuffed in your trousers. I’ll do the supper – you go up and change and see your boy.’
‘He’ll be asleep.’
‘I bet he isn’t. He always wants you to say goodnight.’
When he came downstairs again, he could smell the stew.
‘Nearly ready,’ she said.
He laid the table and poured water. ‘George just told me that the three wise men brought gifts of gold, frankypants and moo. I suppose it was the association in his mind with the ox and the ass; and not knowing what myrrh is.’
‘There’s that line in “Away in a Manger”: – “The cattle are lowing”,’ she said. ‘His friend Luca at pre-school calls milk moo-moo.’
‘Why is he talking about Christmas already?’ Slider complained.
‘It’s the other pre-schoolers opening his eyes to the commercial possibilities,’ she said, bringing plates to the table. ‘They’re all such little Alan Sugars. You notice that the aspect of Christmas that’s uppermost in his thoughts is the gifts.’
‘I saw the first Christmas lights on my way home. As soon as Remembrance Day’s over …’
‘You don’t go into shops much, do you, my darling? The supermarkets have had Christmas stuff on display since the beginning of October.’
‘We’re robbing children of their childhood,’ he grumbled. ‘Kelly-Ann Hayes is only nineteen. She should be having crushes on pop stars, not full-blown sexual relationships.’
‘Where have you been for the past fifty years? Christine Keeler was only nineteen.’
‘Yes, and how well did that work for her?’
‘Who’s Kelly-Ann Hayes?’
He told her.
‘Well, all is explained,’ she said. ‘So that’s why you’re tired. You don’t like suspecting her.’