‘Well, you obviously have an alibi, Mrs Denton,’ I say. ‘But what of other members of staff?’
She tells me about the rigorous investigation made by the local police, how all the teaching staff were interviewed.
‘Because Amelie was a diplomat’s daughter, the investigation was taken very seriously,’ she says. ‘I take it they never found her?’
‘No,’ I say. ‘But we’ve reopened the case recently.’
She doesn’t ask me why, which I am expecting. Instead she looks thoughtful. ‘But surely you have the police records of who worked here at the time?’ she says. ‘And their interview transcripts.’
‘I do.’
‘So then what more can I give you?’
‘I believe Amelie went willingly with her kidnapper; she knew them,’ I reveal to see her reaction.
She looks startled. ‘You don’t really think one of the teaching staff was behind this?’
Instead of answering her question, I ask her about security at the time. The doors were locked when I arrived today, and my identification was studied before I was allowed in. But could a stranger just enter the school in any other way?
‘Security wasn’t as it is now,’ she admits. ‘Reception doors were unlocked. Parents often walked in and went to their child’s classroom to collect them. Now they aren’t allowed to do that. The world has changed. This changed our school!’
I leave her office with a promise that her secretary will send over a list of former employees. I want to see if any of them aren’t mentioned in the police report. I have a feeling about this case, and although I’m not suspicious of Denton, I think she may still know more than she realises.
As I walk through the reception, I see a pile of prospectuses left on a table for potential students. I take one, for future reference.
When I return to my office, I pull the prospectus out of my briefcase and flick through it. There is a section inside about the history of the school: a four-page spread telling the story of how Janice Brayford founded it in the 1950s. Brayford was still alive, and almost ninety when Amelie Arquette went missing, but by then someone else had taken over the running of the school.
I look back at the folder Ray gave me earlier and see that Jacqueline Brayford-Bell was the headmistress from 1995. It isn’t much of a surprise to learn that Jacqueline is Janice’s only daughter.
Denton had said she took over five years ago, so I assume that this was when Jacqueline retired. I try to work out what age Jacqueline was by then, but can’t because I don’t know what age Janice had been when she had her daughter. It is certainly research for later if I think it will help, but for now I’m merely curious.
I put the prospectus down, then, looking once more through the file, I make a list of who I need to contact.
I spend the rest of the afternoon ringing a few of the other schools. It’s difficult to get to speak to the heads for most of them, and so I arrange a few telephone appointments for the next day. Then, at 5pm, I put the prospectus, and the folder, in my briefcase and shut down my computer.
Tonight, I have every intention of speaking to Neva about her past.
Chapter Fifty-Six
Michael
When I return home, I go into my flat as usual. I turn on lamps and close curtains as though I’m home. Then I go across to Mrs Kendal’s.
Neva is in the kitchen. There are two pans boiling on the hob. She holds out a glass of red wine to me, then she returns to stirring something she’s cooking in one of the pans.
‘I hope you like spaghetti bolognese,’ she says.
I’m a little shocked by this display of domesticity; it isn’t something I’ve ever considered that she does.
‘I like cooking,’ she says. She looks at me and her eyes dip shyly. ‘Remember, I was taught to fit in. Cooking is a useful skill.’
It’s very odd for me to have anyone cook for me. There’s been no one in my life since Kirstie, and that hadn’t turned out so well in the end. I feel more than a little uncomfortable with it, but I force myself to stand and watch her while I sip my wine.
‘Can I help?’ I say after a few seconds.
‘This is weird, isn’t it?’ she says.
‘Yes. Very.’
She stops stirring the wooden spoon around the pan and reaches for her own glass of wine.
‘Yeah. For me too. I usually do this alone,’ she says.
We are very similar. And very different. Both of us live in a less-than-normal world. Mine at least pretends to be normal, but since she’s alone all the time other than when she is on an assignment, I wonder how Neva’s universe can come anywhere close. And yet she does this so well. She looks so natural. Is this a performance or am I seeing the real her?
‘Sieve?’ she says.
‘Huh?’
‘To strain the spaghetti.’
I search through Mrs Kendal’s cupboards until I find what she’s looking for. Then I hold out the sieve. She takes it, places it in the sink, and then she takes the second pan off the hob and tips the contents into it. She shakes it, straining away the water. Then she returns the pasta to the pan. From the fridge she cuts a piece of butter from a bar and swirls it around the spaghetti, returning the pan briefly to the hob until it all melts.
‘Plates?’ she says.
I get the plates and she serves up her creation.
We sit at the breakfast bar. We eat. We sip wine. The bolognese sauce is delicious. I try not to stare at her, or make a big deal of the fact that she’s cooked for us. It doesn’t mean anything, other than a practical need being filled. But she looks so at home here it makes me feel relaxed as well. I wonder about this, how she can just be so calm, and then I realise it is all a facade. Something she does to hide her real emotions.
She’s natural today. No wig, just that luscious hair and a little make-up. It makes her appear very young and sweet. The perfect girl next door.
‘I take it you had no issues today?’ I say.
‘No one came to your place. So no one got killed,’ she says.
I laugh. It is an amusing thought that someone might sneak into my home and Neva would dispatch them. I play out the scenario in my mind as though I’m watching a movie. I see Neva karate chop the intruder. I chuckle a little at the thought.
Neva gives me a look and frowns a little, even as she takes a bite of food. I don’t explain how far the small joke went inside my head.
After dinner, when the dishwasher is full, we go back into the living room with our newly replenished glasses.
On Mrs Kendal’s coffee table is the autopsy report for Sharrick.
‘Did you look at this again?’ I ask.
‘Yes, and I think I know where he disappeared to.’
I look at her and wait.
‘They took him to the house. I’d say that’s where he died,’ she says.
‘How do you know?’
‘The chafing on his hands. Sharrick went up on the trapeze. He’d probably not used it for years, but the old scarring confirms he once did,’ Neva says.
‘Trapeze? I don’t understand.’
Then Neva explains about the rigorous training that all operatives go through.
‘If an escape calls for it, I could launch myself from one rooftop to another with a lot of confidence that I’ll reach the other side,’ she tells me.
‘It explains what he fell from,’ I say.
Neva nods. She’s quiet, as though she’s imagining Sharrick on the trapeze, seeing him fall.
‘I wish I could find this place. We’d have a whole load of answers in one go,’ I say.
Neva curls up on the sofa and I open my briefcase and return the report to its former place. Then I pull out the prospectus for Janice Brayford’s prep school.
‘What’s that?’ she asks.
I hold it out to her, watching her expression as she takes it.
‘Do you recognise this place?’ I ask.
She shakes her head.
‘Look insi
de; maybe something will spark a memory.’
Neva opens the booklet. She studies the opening pages, examines the pictures of small children in uniform, and then she opens the page to the history section. She’s relaxed as she reads and then she turns the page again and is faced with the photograph of a young Janice Brayford. It’s an old black and white taken in front of an imposing building.
Neva sits upright.
‘Look!’
I join her on the sofa and she points to the photograph and the building behind Janice. All we can see are steps, going up to a grand double doorway.
‘I recognise this place,’ she says.
On the opposite page is a more modern photograph of the woman. I identify it as the head teacher’s office at the school, even though the décor has changed since this photograph.
‘Oh my God,’ says Neva. ‘The house.’
‘What?’ I look at the picture. Janice was probably in her eighties at this point. ‘What am I looking at?’
‘Behind her.’
Above Janice’s head is an old black and white picture taken at a distance of a sprawling mansion. At the front is a row of steps leading up to the big double front doors. The same steps that Janice looks very comfortable in front of in her youth.
‘This is the house. The one where they took me.’
‘Are you sure?’ I ask.
‘I spent twelve years of my life there,’ she says. ‘I’m positive.’
I take the prospectus and read the story of Janice Brayford’s life once more, this time looking for information on the house. The only credit given to the black and white picture of her is ‘Janice as a trainee teacher in her early twenties’.
I think we’ve just had a breakthrough, but I don’t say anything.
The rest of the evening, Neva is quiet. She wades through the prospectus but whatever she gleans from it she doesn’t share.
I tell her about my visit to the school that day. She listens, but says nothing. Eventually I ask her outright if she recognises the place.
‘No,’ she says. ‘It doesn’t fit in with the memory I have of my school,’ she says. ‘It seemed much smaller somehow.’
I don’t press her on it. She’s probably shocked that she has found some link to the house. Or perhaps seeing the building again is causing her some massive stress. It’s hard to tell because she shuts herself down as a defence mechanism.
‘Now we have a photograph, it should be easier to find this house,’ I tell her.
She gazes into my eyes, her own quizzical and glinting in the candlelight.
Then she stands, takes my hand, and leads me to the bedroom without a word.
I let her. The time for coyness is gone.
Chapter Fifty-Seven
Michael
The next day, I return to the Janice Brayford Prep School unannounced. I ask to see Denton, but I’m told she’s called in sick.
‘I need to see her office,’ I say.
The secretary is reluctant to take me in there without the head’s permission, but I threaten to get a warrant and the girl is so intimidated that she unlocks the door.
Inside the room, I look at the pictures on the walls. Janice Brayford’s photo isn’t there, and neither is the picture Neva and I had seen behind the woman in the colour photograph. Now, in its place, is a simple landscape print.
‘Where did that picture go?’ I ask the secretary. When she looks at me blankly, I describe it to her. ‘It’s there in your prospectus.’
I go and fetch one from the pile in the reception and show the girl the photograph.
‘I don’t know,’ she says. ‘It wasn’t there when I started here. It’s always been the landscape.’
I ask for Denton’s mobile number but the secretary refuses to give it. ‘I can’t!’ she says. ‘I’ll lose my job. That’s data protection!’
‘Then ring her and put me on the phone to her.’
I follow the girl back to her office where she pulls out Denton’s mobile number and, hiding it from me, dials the number on the landline telephone on her desk.
After a few rings it goes to voicemail. She leaves a message for her to call me, reading out my mobile number from the card I hold out to her.
After that I leave the school and return to the office, but on the way, I buy two new phone handsets and sim cards for cash. One that I’ll give to Neva later and one that I’ll keep for myself just to communicate with her.
When I get into the office, I find Ray and Leon are absent. Like me, they will be out doing their own investigations for whatever cases they are working on.
In my inbox I find an email from Beth. She asks about the child disappearance case. I don’t know what to answer. Ray has given it to me now, but he didn’t ban me from discussing it with her. I reply with a noncommittal response about catching up with her when she’s back.
Using this time alone, I go into Leon’s office. I’m not expecting to find anything in there, but I search his desk drawers and look inside his office diary. Nothing jumps out at me as being out of the ordinary.
Getting into Ray’s office will be a different matter however. He always locks the door when none of us are in the office. Even so, I go down the corridor and try the handle. As predicted, it doesn’t budge, so I walk on past towards the coffee machine to give me an excuse for being down here.
I bring back a drink to my office, open my briefcase, and take out the prospectus again. The picture stands out to me so much as an odd one for the old woman to have in her office. I look up Janice Brayford and discover she was ninety-one when she died. I search the name Jacqueline Brayford-Bell and other than finding a few photographs of her on her retirement, there is little to go on. I’ll have to get permission to search DVLA to see if the woman still holds a driving licence. New data protection laws mean that all of these searches need justifying, even for MI5.
Later, I scan the image of the house in the prospectus and set up an online image search to see if the house can be recognised by our systems. There are always a lot of avenues to go down.
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Neva
After Michael leaves for work, Neva showers and dresses, and puts on a shoulder-length black wig.
She smiles when she sees the two empty wine glasses in the living room as she briefly remembers the sex from the night before
She can’t stay here all day today, despite her promise to guard Michael’s place from further invasion; she has a source to meet and her own investigations to continue. The picture of the house has haunted her thoughts. Memories merge with horrible scenes that form part of bizarre, disjointed fragments of her dreams. Now she’s awake, she tries to make sense of it all. A signpost saying ‘Manchester 17 miles’ is one thing she recalls, but she doesn’t remember ever going there until her recent stay – not even for an assignment.
She realises now that this memory was always there. It’s why she subliminally chose Manchester as the place for her bolthole with Daz and Marie.
Out of habit, she takes all of her belongings in the rucksack she brought with her and tucks a small pistol into a holster at the small of her back. She pulls a loose jacket over the ensemble. She looks like a rock-chick or goth, especially when she pulls on a sleeve that makes her arm look as though it has a large Celtic cross tattooed on it. In truth she has no tattoos, and no piercings – not even in her ears.
She takes the rucksack and exits the flat, taking with her Michael’s spare keys.
Outside, she heads to the tube station, avoiding any cameras along the way.
Her source works at the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew, managing the Orchid display.
It’s still early and the gardens are otherwise quiet. Neva walks over, holding a map, and the woman gives her a slightly impatient sideways glance that suggests she’s already sick of being asked directions.
Her name is Sophia Birling. She’s worked at the gardens for years, but she’s also a hacker with a sideline in selling information she’s g
leaned about huge corporations. She’s not smart enough to know what she’s actually stealing though, and this is why Neva has decided not only to converse with her online but also to meet Sophia in person. Neva’s interest in the woman was piqued when she casually mentioned she’d come across financial records for a company that has so far been off the radar. What alerted Neva to this was the mention of the company’s CEO: Mr M. A. Beech.
Lily Devlin had said the order for her death had come from Mr Beech. Neva hadn’t really digested the name – not until the information came up for sale in Onionland – and then she’d remembered the conversation. Mr Beech. He’ll give the order for you too.
Neva doesn’t think too deeply about why she hadn’t thought of the name since Devlin’s death. Key words and phrases often become obscure to her. It is, she thinks, a side-effect of the conditioning. Though she remembers more now than she ever did, Beech’s name had been taboo. She had forgotten it the instant she heard it. But not now. Now it’s beginning to make sense to her. And Beech himself is a figure somewhere in her past, though she’s yet to find that memory.
‘Act as though you’re giving me directions,’ Neva says.
Sophia’s face registers a moment of shock and then she starts to gesture after the woman with the buggy, and then to another part of the gardens.
‘Good,’ says Neva. ‘Where’s the document?’
Sophia looks around. Neva casts a glance too but she’s more circumspect than Sophia, whose lack of sophistication is obvious. How did this ridiculous woman come across this information?
Sophia takes a folder in a plastic wallet out from under her blouse. She passes it to Neva.
‘What about my money?’ Sophia says.
Neva looks at Sophia for a long moment. She’s taken a big risk meeting her, but she wouldn’t let her have the information remotely. Really, she should kill her for even getting this close. She weighs it up. If this was a Network job, she would have to silence the girl. But no, those days are over. Sophia isn’t working for, or against, the Network. Neva reasons that she is not important enough to come up on their radar. And even if she does, she couldn’t tell them anything about Neva other than what she looked like and the Network already knows that.
The House of Killers, Book 1 Page 23
