Dr Samantha Willerby Box Set

by A J Waines

  After a while, Aiden dropped his sketch pad and went to sit on his own in the bow. When he came back, I asked for any photographs or press-cuttings I could look at from his past, his school days or recent college days. The police had taken all his online devices so they would check his social media sites, but I was hoping for a more personal angle. I wanted to look for a mention of Kora, but also for the names of the other missing women, Pippa and Honoré. Maybe Aiden himself had some connection to the Craig-Doyle Gallery.

  He returned from his cabin with a shoebox brimming with newspaper clippings and snapshots. I saw familiar faces straight away; Howard and Valerie, paintbrushes in hand; Natalie and Didier holding long forks over a barbeque. There were none of Aiden’s family that I could make out, none that could be his mother. Nothing earlier than around three years ago, in fact, when he was sixteen. I moved on to the clippings. Awards and accolades followed one after another, praising Aiden’s ‘outstanding talent’, his ‘youthful vision’ and ‘fresh dynamism’. It wasn’t telling me anything new.

  I was about to put them back into the box, when a photo from Vogue caught my eye. It was from a fashion show in Kensington and showed a woman advancing down the catwalk. There was something familiar that I couldn’t place. It wasn’t her face; she had the androgynous look of many size-zero models, it was something else. Something I’d seen, earlier that day.

  I retraced my steps in my mind’s eye. Aiden had torn up a drawing and I’d tried to patch it together, then I’d been at the police station. Jeremy and I had talked about the two missing women. Aiden had done more sketches when I got back and I’d looked through his box of memorabilia. What was it? What had I seen?

  Instead of forcing my brain to make a connection, I decided to focus on something else. Give myself time. I picked up the TV remote and noticed a prospectus underneath it. It was for Chelsea College and as I gave it a quick flick through, I spotted some of Aiden’s work, used as inspirational examples.

  That’s when I spotted it.

  A distinctive silver feather design on white silk; one of Aiden’s scarves. I went back to the photo of the model on the catwalk for comparison and it was definitely the same design. Where else had I seen it that day?

  Then it hit me.

  So Aiden wouldn’t see, I took my bag into my cabin and eased out the prints from the crime scene photographs Jeremy had given me. There it was, tossed on the towpath after being torn from Kora’s slashed neck. No longer white, but unmistakeable, nevertheless. Aiden’s scarf.

  Chapter 22

  My loyalty to Aiden could only go so far. I had to tell the police about the scarf and rise above the loud voice in my head that screamed: It didn’t mean Kora and Aiden knew each other.

  Jeremy said he’d ring me back. I stepped off the boat and paced up and down the pontoon, waiting. When nothing happened I began chopping leeks for a pasta dish and his call came in as I moved on to grating cheese.

  ‘We’ve checked the records at his college – pretty inconclusive,’ Jeremy said. I went back onto the bow to make sure I was out of Aiden’s hearing. ‘He sold a selection of items through the end-of-year shows and exhibitions.’

  ‘Is that where students sell their work?’ I asked him.

  ‘Some students have market stalls at Camden or Portobello Road, but not Aiden, he’s aiming at a much higher market and is getting retailers on board. Tutors told us he’s talking to stores like Selfridges and Liberty about producing his range, because he can’t keep up with demand.’

  I laughed. ‘That figures. So, someone could have bought the scarf for Kora, as a gift.’

  ‘Or Aiden could have given it to her.’

  ‘Or she could have been at one of the college shows and bought it herself.’

  He made a non-committal noise. ‘We’re looking into it, but sales at the college events made in cash have no details of the buyers, so it’s going to be tricky. Kora’s partner certainly didn’t know where she’d got it from.’

  ‘I could ask Miranda, my sister; she was Kora’s best friend.’

  ‘No, don’t you dare! We’re asking the questions, okay? I don’t want you talking to anybody. We’ve got it covered – leave it to us.’

  His breaths were clipped and throaty. ‘By the way, we’ve traced the last call from Kora’s mobile phone, made around ten minutes before she was knocked off her bike,’ he said. ‘It was to a guy called Murray Kent.’

  ‘Who’s he?’

  ‘We’re trying to work out what connection he had with Kora, but there were a number of calls made to and from the same phone in the last month or so.’ I waited. ‘Her partner had never heard of the guy. He lives locally. Owns a place called The Flower Basket. It’s a florist Kora had liked on Facebook.’

  ‘So this guy might have been the last person to have had contact with her?’

  ‘Or been the one to lure her along the towpath. We’re talking to him.’ There was a beat’s silence. ‘Don’t mention Kent’s name to Blake, but bear it in mind… and while you’re on the boat, keep a look out for anything else that could be connected. Strict confidentiality goes for any other information that we pass on to you, of course. It’s to give you a context for getting information out of the witness, that’s all. And don’t even think about doing any amateur sleuthing yourself, okay? As soon as he’s speaking, it’s over to us. Got it?’

  ‘Loud and clear,’ I said. ‘Therapy is my job, interviewing is yours, right?’

  ‘Exactly. You just get him talking.’

  ‘By the way,’ I said, ‘is it possible that the killer was either moored in the area or passing by, along the canal?’

  ‘In a boat, you mean?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘We’ve already checked that out. There were five boats moored alongside Aiden’s that evening. Two have left the area now; a couple in their sixties and a young pair with a baby. The others are still there; a retired Dutch guy, a young couple with a yapping dog and a woman on her own, around fifty. We spoke to them all. We’ve looked into river traffic, too. No one saw anything unusual.’

  ‘What if a boat had been passing and the killer jumped off and then got back on again?’

  ‘Three of the boat folk heard the commotion and climbed onto the towpath straight after it happened. Nobody recalls hearing a boat engine, any water movement or lights from a passing vessel.’

  ‘What about a rowing boat – something small and quiet?’

  ‘Like I say, post-crime witnesses were on the scene very quickly, but no one saw anything on the water. There’s a canoe club near the lock, but none of their boats were missing. We’ve had officers over at Little Venice to the West and no boats came through there at that time – nor were there any stray boats heading east towards Camden. There’s the lock there, of course, which would hold them up. And before you ask,’ I could hear the smile in his voice, ‘we’ve considered someone swimming too. There were no splashes of water at the crime scene, which you’d expect if someone had come out of the canal.’

  Tuesday, July 10 – Day Five

  I was in the middle of ordering online groceries when I got a call from the police. They’d traced Aiden’s mother. She was called Coleen O’Leary, aged forty, and my hunch from Aiden’s sand tray scene had been right; she’d been in a psychiatric hospital for the past ten years. Aiden had changed his name, which explained why it had taken some time to track her down.

  ‘What kind of state is she in?’ I asked. It was DI Karen Foxton who’d rung me.

  ‘Not good,’ she said. ‘Coleen had a breakdown in 2008. She was admitted to St Patrick’s Psychiatric Hospital in Belfast, suffering from psychosis. According to the psychiatrist, she’d lost touch with reality and was unable to take care of herself.’ I heard her sniff. ‘She’s been having intermittent electric shock treatment, with medication and psychotherapy, but basically she’s spent her time there believing she’s Mother Mary.’

  I suppressed a sigh, noting the complete absence of sympathy in he
r voice. ‘Imagine having to cope with your mother in that state, when you’re only ten,’ I said, swallowing hard. ‘Sounds like she’s not going to be any support for Aiden, for certain.’

  ‘I’ll email over the report,’ she said. ‘One interesting thing, though. Coleen has got a criminal record. She attacked a woman with a knife, in 2008…’

  I wasn’t sure what she was getting at. ‘At the time of Kora’s death, wasn’t she miles away surrounded by alibis in white coats?’

  ‘Yeah, but it might run in the family,’ she said, provocatively.

  Aiden seemed slightly brighter when he emerged this morning. He’d washed his hair and walked a little taller than he had during the past few days. We shared a pot of fresh coffee, sitting on tiny canvas stools at the front of the boat, in the sweet calm air. I decided to try a fresh tack.

  ‘Can you imagine something for me?’ The muscles in his jaw froze. ‘It’s nothing awful, I promise.’

  He swept a strand of hair out of his eyes and stared back at me.

  ‘Can you imagine yourself standing… just a few feet away… on the pontoon?’ I pointed to the planks on dry land. ‘Right beside the boat, holding on to it, perhaps?’

  A look of abject terror came over his face and he glanced sideways towards the door.

  ‘How about one foot on the boat and one on the pontoon?’

  He shuddered, then got up abruptly. Keeping his eyes on me the whole time, he backed away, as though he thought I might make a grab for him.

  ‘I’m sorry…’ I said hopelessly.

  He disappeared into his cabin. He wasn’t ready to go anywhere.

  I wouldn’t be giving that another go in a hurry. It was obviously far too soon for him. I blamed the pressure of time slipping away for my faux pas, together with Claussen and Wilde’s bullheaded tones in my head, demanding results. I needed to put them right out of my mind and stick to my own judgement from now on.

  I stayed where I was, tipping my face upwards towards the tingling rays of the sun, wondering what to do next. Overlooking this particular setback, Aiden’s ability to take up his pencil and draw sketches of the crime scene was impressive for someone so deeply traumatised. Having said that, there must have been around fifteen by now and none of them showed any trace of an assailant. I began to wonder if he’d seen him at all.

  My ruminations were interrupted by my phone.

  ‘What’s Blake up to?’ It was Jeremy.

  ‘Nothing. Gone to his cabin. I suggested leaving the boat and he’s not ready to even contemplate the idea.’

  ‘Any chance you can get away and join me for a short lunch break? My treat. I haven’t taken a proper lunch hour in weeks and I need a break from home-made sarnies with sausage and ketchup.’

  ‘Yuck, I don’t blame you!’

  The idea of being back on dry land for a while was certainly appealing. ‘I’ll need to see if someone here can keep an eye on Aiden, first,’ I told him.

  Natalie was ironing when I tapped on her front door. She was dressed in a see-through wraparound skirt and bikini top – she’d had the afternoon off from rehearsals.

  ‘I’ll just get my knitting.’ she said. ‘The rest of Didi’s shirts can wait.’

  Moments later she joined me in Aiden’s saloon, with a pile of magazines and a bag trailing pink wool.

  ‘What if he comes out of his cabin?’ she asked, nervously fluttering her lashes. ‘I don’t know what to say to him.’

  ‘Just talk to him normally, but try to avoid asking questions. Tell him what you’ve been doing – easy, ordinary things – like a verbal postcard. He needs as much normality around him as possible.’

  I left her unravelling a tangle of fluffy angora.

  Chapter 23

  I was getting used to the journey from Limehouse to Camden. Whilst it looked a long way on the Tube map, it was only eight stops via Bank, and it took less than thirty minutes door to door on a good day.

  I spotted Jeremy waiting outside Bartoli’s, a swish place in a secluded passageway, hidden from the bustling high street.

  ‘Woo, this is lovely,’ I said. ‘I wasn’t expecting a proper restaurant.’

  ‘I’m glad you could come,’ he said. ‘I’m all too aware that you’ve given up your holiday for this case. Shouting you lunch is the least I can do.’

  The waiter took us through to a small courtyard at the back and brought a collection of warm bread rolls. Hanging baskets spilling over with electric-blue lobelia lined the terrace and wafts of boxus and rosemary enveloped us from wooden planters by our feet. Each table had a crisp linen tablecloth and a glass with white roses set amongst sapphire-coloured delphiniums in the centre. It looked divine. Just the chance to sit here for a breather would have been a treat, regardless of the food.

  ‘Wine?’ Jeremy offered, opening the drinks menu.

  ‘Oh, no – not for me.’ I said. ‘I’m officially working.’ He nodded and reluctantly closed the menu.

  I broke apart a freshly baked roll as we waited for our order to arrive and thought of Terry and his new passion for bread-making. He’d have to pull out all the stops to match the texture and flavour of this. I toyed with suggesting we come here, instead of The Dorchester – our running joke.

  Jeremy caught me smiling, but I was saved from having to explain myself by lunch arriving.

  ‘I’ve decided I’m in love with truffle oil,’ I said, as I tucked into my plate of coated gorgonzola and walnuts. I’d chosen to stick with vegetarian, having got a taste for the clean freshness of non-meat dishes on the boat.

  We fell into an easy silence.

  ‘By the way, we’ve interviewed Murray Kent,’ he said eventually, manoeuvring a wayward piece of rocket between his lips. It was inevitable that after a while, we’d talk about the case. ‘No harm in telling you that he lives in Kentish Town.’ He wiped his mouth with the napkin, which was so thick it was almost a flannel. ‘He’s admitted to knowing Kora. He claims they’d been discussing the possibility of selling her sculptures in his flower shop. They were due to meet that evening.’

  I finished my mouthful. ‘Why so late?’

  ‘Mmm… exactly… he claimed she suggested it was the best time for her.’

  ‘Do you believe his story?’ I asked him.

  ‘Not sure,’ he admitted. ‘Murray said Kora didn’t want to tell anyone about the shop deal until it was definite.’

  ‘Were they having an affair?’

  ‘Murray denies it and Kora’s friends and family say absolutely not. They say Kora was totally devoted to Sponge and the boy, but…’

  ‘People do act out of character,’ I said, tipping my head from side to side.

  ‘Of course, Murray might have been stringing her along, perhaps hoping to introduce some fringe benefits into the deal, if he hadn’t done so already.’

  ‘What’s Murray’s side of the story for what happened that night?’

  ‘He said that as he drove into the CCAP car park to collect Kora he had a call from the caretaker, Lou Tennison, ringing on Kora’s behalf, saying she’d been unwell and had just left in a taxi. Murray tried her mobile after that and couldn’t get through, so he turned round and went home. He said he got home at around 10.15pm, but there’s no alibi for that.’

  ‘So, he thought she’d already left… not on her bike, but in a taxi?’

  He shrugged, then pulled a face as he dragged a fish bone from his mouth, leaving it on the edge of his plate.

  ‘We know that’s not what happened, but does his version of it fit?’ I asked, relieved I didn’t have to negotiate my way through fish remains in each mouthful.

  ‘Basically, no,’ he said, sitting back. ‘Lou said he didn’t make a call using Kora’s phone. He said he never touched it.’

  ‘So Murray Kent is lying.’

  ‘Not necessarily. Someone else could have made the call and said it was the caretaker. Kent doesn’t know Lou. He doesn’t know what he should sound like. It could have been someone else who wa
s with Kora and took her phone.’

  ‘Did anyone see Kent leave when he said he did?’

  Jeremy scraped his nails over a patch of eczema on the underside of his wrist that I hadn’t noticed until then. ‘We’re checking that out. It took Kent a long time to get from CCAP to his place in Kentish Town, over forty-five minutes. Should have taken around ten minutes at that time of night. Kent said he stopped off on the way home and bought groceries in an all-night place on the corner of Padua Street. Paid cash. It could account for the delay in getting home, but we need to see if there’s any CCTV or if they remember him. That could be his alibi.’ We both held still for a second as a siren wailed in the distance. ‘A call was certainly made to Kent from Kora’s phone at nine twenty-two and the caretaker told us Kora left on her bike at nine twenty-five. We know that’s true, but she wasn’t in a taxi. Obviously we’re talking to Lou again, because we’ve got a story that doesn’t add up.’

  ‘Is Sponge a suspect?’ I asked, the idea suddenly occurring to me. ‘Maybe somehow he’d got the idea Kora was cheating on him.’

  ‘He seemed pretty shell-shocked when we told him about the late meeting planned with Kent, but his only alibi is that he was at home babysitting their son Raven.’ He opened his eyes wide. ‘There’s one more thing,’ he said, looking grave. ‘Murray Kent has a criminal record for GBH.’

  I put down my fork and stopped to take in what he’d said. Something was definitely off-kilter. Someone was messing about with the truth over Kora’s last movements.

  Jeremy gave a sign to the waiter to bring the bill. ‘Maybe next time we can meet after work and have a decent glass of wine, eh?’ He shook his water glass which rattled with the remains of ice cubes.

  I smiled and felt it fade, uncertain over what this lunch was really about.

  The bill came and I put my credit card alongside his on the saucer. ‘Fifty-fifty,’ I said emphatically.

  He looked awkward. ‘It’s okay…’