by Val McDermid
Even with their helmets off, Jamie and Tara were eerily similar. Both tall, broad in the shoulder and narrow in the hips, blonde hair tousled and shining, long narrow faces and pointed chins. At first glance, they looked more like brother and sister than lovers. It took closer inspection to reveal key differences. Tara had brown eyes, Jamie blue. Her hair was longer and finer, her cheekbones higher and broader, her mouth wider and fuller. Siobhan introduced everyone, and they all crammed round the small kitchen table. Jamie seemed more concerned for Tara than devastated by the news about Leanne. Of the three of them, Tara seemed most affected. Her eyes were sparkling with tears, and she kept raising her hand to her mouth and biting down on her knuckle as Kevin shared as little information as possible about Leanne’s death.
Once everyone was settled, this time Kevin took the lead. ‘Obviously in a murder investigation, the first thing we need to establish is the movements of the victim. We believe Leanne died the evening before last. So, can you remember when you saw her last on Tuesday?’
They looked at each other for inspiration. It was hard to say whether they were struggling to remember or making some kind of tacit agreement. But what they had to say showed little sign of collusion. Siobhan had seen Leanne at lunchtime – they’d shared a special-fried rice past its sell-by date that Siobhan had brought home from work. Siobhan had spent the afternoon teaching a seminar. Then she’d gone to work till 11 p.m. Jamie had been working at home before leaving at half past five to walk to the local pub, where he’d been working till midnight. Leanne had still been in the house then. Struggling to keep her tears at bay, Tara explained that she’d spent the afternoon working in the local call centre, where she did six shifts a week. By the time she’d returned at seven, Leanne had left the house. Three friends had come round with pizza just after eight and the four of them had played bridge until Jamie came home. Perfectly shaped alibis that would all have to be checked, but which contained nothing even slightly suspicious. No shifty eye movements, no bad body language, no hesitation in providing names and contact numbers.
So that wasn’t what Siobhan was uneasy about.
‘I’m amazed you find time to study,’ Kevin said conversationally. ‘I see my kids growing up, and it scares me, how hard it’s going to be for them to get through university.’
Jamie gave a one-shouldered shrug. ‘It’s a complete nightmare. But what can you do? Like my father says, “Life’s a bitch.” Our generation’s learning that lesson a bit earlier, that’s all.’
Kevin leaned forward, trying to draw them into a conspiratorial huddle. ‘So what did Leanne do to make ends meet?’
Sam hadn’t been wrong in thinking Siobhan didn’t want to go there. Now it appeared that the other two housemates were equally reluctant. ‘I’m not sure,’ Jamie said, his eyes on his tea.
‘We didn’t really discuss it,’ Tara said, her voice shaky and her expression hopeful. There was clearly something more significant than regret going on now.
Sam pushed his chair back, deliberately disrupting the group. ‘That’s the biggest load of bollocks I’ve heard in a long time. And believe me, I spend my life listening to criminals shooting me a line.’ Seeing their shocked expressions, he pressed on. ‘You live in a shared house with a woman for a year and a half, and you don’t know what she does to pay the bills? That is crap.’
Jamie straightened his shoulders. ‘You’ve got no right to talk to us like that. We’ve just lost a very dear friend and we’re in shock. If my father—’
‘Spare me,’ Sam said sarcastically. ‘Your friend has just been murdered. Brutally murdered. I didn’t know her, but I saw what he did to her and I am bloody determined to catch him and put him away. Now, if that doesn’t matter to you, just say.’ He twisted his mouth in a ‘please yourself’ expression. ‘Cases like this, the media love to find someone to beat up while they’re waiting for us to make an arrest.’
‘You wouldn’t dare,’ Jamie said, trying to sound tough and failing.
‘We’re only trying to protect her memory,’ Siobhan blurted. The other two glared at her. ‘It’s going to come out sooner or later, guys,’ she said, shooting for pathos and hitting the bullseye. ‘It’s better if we just tell them and get it over with.’
‘She did exotic dancing,’ Tara said flatly.
‘And the rest,’ Jamie added. His attempt to appear a man of the world didn’t even get out of the starting blocks.
‘How do you know that, Jamie?’ Kevin said pleasantly. ‘Were you a customer?’
‘Don’t be disgusting,’ Tara said. ‘We all know because she told us. We knew she was working in a lap-dancing club up near the airport. At first, she tried to make out she was just working behind the bar, but it was obvious that she had a lot more cash than you earn pulling pints. We were all a bit pissed one night and I asked her straight out if she was … you know, taking her clothes off for men. She said she did lap dancing and admitted that she had sex with some of the men. Off the premises, she said. She’d meet them after work and do them in their cars.’ Tara’s lip curled involuntarily at the thought.
‘That must have been a shock for you all,’ Kevin said gently.
Jamie breathed heavily, puffing out his lips. ‘No kidding! Nobody imagines ending up sharing a house with a hooker.’
‘Sex worker,’ Siobhan corrected him primly. ‘It was Leanne’s choice – and you could never accuse her of bringing her work home. If she hadn’t told us the kind of bar she was working in, we’d never have known, not from anything she said or did round the house. After the shock passed, we all kind of ignored it. It just didn’t come up. It’s like I said. We all got along together but we weren’t really close. We had our own lives, our own friends.’
Sam was watching Jamie to see if there was any sign of a different response. But both of the others seemed comfortable with Siobhan’s account. ‘Did she have a boyfriend?’
‘She once said she never met any men,’ Siobhan said. ‘I know that sounds weird, but she said the men at work were losers and tossers. We were talking about how hard it is to find the time to meet anyone, never mind invest in a relationship, and she said she couldn’t remember the last time she’d met a bloke she even wanted to have a drink with.’
Another dead end. ‘What was the name of the club where she worked?’ Kevin asked.
They all looked nonplussed. ‘I never asked,’ Tara said. ‘It’s not like we were going to turn up for a drink.’
‘What about you, Jamie? It’s the sort of thing a bloke might be more interested in,’ Sam said.
‘Don’t judge me by your standards,’ Jamie said, a sneer on his face and in his voice.
A low chuckle from Sam. ‘I wasn’t. That’s why I thought you might know. Tara, you said it was up by the airport. Can you remember how you know that?’
Tara frowned and rubbed the side of her cheek with her finger. After a few moments when everyone waited expectantly, she said, ‘She asked me if I knew whether there was any bike parking at the airport. She’d got a cheap flight to Madrid, but it was a really early checkin. She said she’d be as well going from work, because it would only take her fifteen minutes to cycle there.’ When she smiled, Sam could see what Jamie saw in her. Her whole face lightened and she gave the first indication so far that she might be fun. ‘So she must only have been a couple of miles away, tops.’
‘Thank you, we’ll check that out. Is there anyone else you can think of that Leanne was particularly friendly with? One of her fellow Spanish postgrads? Any of the lecturers?’
They exchanged looks again. ‘She was sociable enough, but she didn’t have much free time. Like all of us,’ Tara said ruefully. ‘I can’t think of anyone in particular, but she did a lot of Facebooking. She had a lot of mates in Spain.’
‘I know her password,’ Siobhan said. ‘One time when she was in Spain, she couldn’t get online and she texted me to post something on her Facebook page. It was LCQuixote.’
‘Can you write that dow
n for me?’ Sam slipped his notebook across the table. ‘We could do with some photos too, if you’ve got any?’
Jamie stood up. ‘I’ve got some on the computer. I could print you off a few?’ He returned a few minutes later with a handful of prints on A4 paper. One showed Leanne in a strappy sparkly top raising a glass to the camera, head back and laughing. The ruck of people in the background looked like a party in full swing. Jamie pointed to it. ‘I had a birthday party last year, here in the house.’ There were a couple obviously taken in the kitchen where she was wearing a baggy T-shirt and jeans, leaning against the fridge. In one of them, she was sticking her tongue out at the photographer. The last one showed her standing by her bike, helmet in hand, hair loose, grinning. ‘This one was taken a couple of weeks ago,’ he said. ‘She’d just got back from the library. I was trying out the camera on my new phone. Will these do?’
Kevin nodded. ‘It would be helpful if you could email them to us.’ He was pretty sure they’d got as much as they were going to get from the housemates, so he took out his cards and handed them round. ‘My email address is on there. We’re probably going to have to talk to you again,’ he said. ‘But in the meantime, if anything occurs to you, call us.’ He wasn’t going to hold his breath.
Outside, as they walked back to the car, Sam chuckled. ‘What’s so funny?’ Kevin said.
‘Just thinking how well DI Spencer’s bunch of wankers would have handled that interview. Anything out of the mainstream, like a PhD student hooker, and they’re going to be totally flummoxed.’
Kevin scowled. ‘He’s a complete twat.’
Sam shrugged. ‘He just said out loud what a lot of people think. In a way, I’d rather deal with the likes of Spencer. Better to know where you stand than have to deal with the hypocrites who pretend it makes no odds to them. But deep down, they despise you. You know how I love to dance?’
Kevin knew. It was one of the more surprising things about Sam. It sat awkwardly alongside ruthless ambition and a loyalty that barely went beyond self, but there was no doubting it. ‘Yeah,’ he said, unlocking the car and getting behind the wheel.
Sam settled into the passenger seat, hitching up his trousers to avoid bagging the knees. ‘Occasionally, when I ask a woman to dance, a white woman, she’ll just look me up and down and come straight out with it – “I don’t dance with black guys.” It knocks you back on your heels a bit, because most people just don’t say that kind of thing any more. But that’s fair enough, you know. What pisses me off much more than that is when I ask a white woman to dance and she makes some excuse, like she’s too hot or she’s too tired or she’s waiting for a drink. And then five minutes later, I see her on the floor with some complete muppet. That makes me want to go over and say something so cutting she’ll cry all the way home.’
‘So you’re saying you don’t mind what that bell-end Spencer said?’
Sam stroked his goatee. ‘I mind, but I’m not going to lose sleep over it. And neither should you. Me and my ginger homie, we are going to show them how a murder investigation is run. And that is the best revenge, my friend.’
23
‘I’m a serving police officer,’ Carol said calmly. Underneath the surface, Tony could hear tightly controlled anger. ‘I don’t go anywhere without a police escort. It’s called my team.’
A long silence. A tightening of lips and shoulders. ‘No, of course they don’t come home with me. But I’m presuming you will be providing cover for Dr Hill? … His house is divided into two flats. He lives upstairs and I live downstairs.’ Tony could imagine how much it was costing Carol to reveal details of her private life to Piers Lambert. ‘Surely the same team is capable of watching two doors in the same building? I thought this was a time of austerity?’ More silence. Carol drummed her fingers on the desk and closed her eyes. ‘Thank you, Mr Lambert.’ And the call was over. ‘Bloody bureaucrats,’ Carol said.
‘Tell me you’ve accepted protection,’ Tony said.
‘I could tell you that, but it would be a lie. Move over, let me get to my filing cabinet,’ Carol said. Tony obediently wheeled himself to one side so she could reach the drawer with the secret stash of vodka. Carol took out a miniature and sloshed it into the cup of coffee she’d walked in with. She sat down on the visitor’s chair and glared at him. ‘What? You heard what I said. Look out there.’ She gestured at the squad room beyond the blinds. ‘The place is awash with coppers. Vance is not going to get near me while I’m at work.’
‘He got out of a prison without anybody stopping him. And now he seems to have disappeared into thin air. Pretty good for a man with a recognisable face and an artificial arm.’
‘For God’s sake, Tony. Vance is not going to walk in here and murder me. And when I’m at home, the team that are watching you can keep an eye on me too. Now, can we just stop talking about this?’
Tony shrugged. ‘If that’s what you want.’
‘It’s what I want.’
‘OK.’ He stared at the computer, closing down the windows he’d already minimised when Carol had walked in to take Lambert’s call. The last thing he needed was for her to see what he was working on. ‘I’m going home, then. Piers told me my guardian angels are waiting for me downstairs in reception. So I don’t have to hang around here any longer.’
‘I won’t be much longer, if you want to hang on and come back with me?’
He shook his head, getting to his feet. ‘My car’s here. Plus I’ve got stuff to be getting on with.’ Stuff which will really piss you off.
Taken aback, Carol said, ‘Oh. I thought we could have a chat about the move. My move. I need to figure out what to do about the excess furniture. Because your house is fully furnished and I’ve got one or two things I want to bring with me. My bed, mainly. Because I love that bed.’
Tony smiled. ‘So bring your bed. The one in your room’s a bit of a monstrosity anyway. I can sell it, or give it away, or put it in the garage so there’s something to put back when you’ve had enough of living with me and need to be on your own again.’ He gave her a nervy, anxious look, seeking reassurance.
She ran a hand through her hair, turning shaggy into spiky. ‘I don’t think that’s going to happen.’ Her smile was uncertain too. ‘We’ve spent years taking very small steps towards each other. We never do anything in relation to each other unless we’re belt-and-braces sure of it. I can’t believe this is going to end in disaster.’
He stood up and moved round the desk to put a hand on her shoulder. ‘We won’t let it. I’ll get someone from the antiques centre round to value the bed. And now, I’m going home. It’s ten o’clock and I’m knackered. I’ll talk to you tomorrow, OK?’
She covered his hand with hers. ‘OK.’
‘I know you think I’m overreacting,’ he said, drawing away and moving to the door. ‘But I know what men like Vance are capable of. And it’s taken us so long to get this far, I couldn’t stand to lose you now.’
Then he was gone.
Vance woke up with a start, heart racing, all his senses on full alert. For a moment, he had no idea where he was, thrashing around in the big bed and getting tangled in the unfamiliar duvet. Then the silence sank in and he remembered. He was not where he expected to be. He was miles away from his confined cell in HMP Oakworth. He was in Vinton Woods, in a house owned by a Cayman Islands corporation whose sole director was Patrick Gordon, the name in one of the passports in the briefcase Terry had given him.
He rolled over and snapped on the bedside lamp. Its white glass shade cast a soft light over part of the room. That was novel in itself. The light in his cell at Oakworth had illuminated every corner, exposing its limits and its limitations. But this glow left things to the imagination. Vance liked that.
The bedding, though, was lamentable. That would have to go. Terry had been working class to the core. He really believed that black satin sheets meant you’d arrived.
Vance looked at his watch and was surprised to see it was barely ten o’clock.
He’d been asleep for about six hours, but now he was in that peculiar state of still being tired and yet alert. Something had woken him up, some anxiety that had invaded his dreams, and now he couldn’t quite grasp it. He got out of bed, enjoying the feel of soft, rich carpeting beneath his feet. He had a piss, realised he felt hungry, and padded downstairs to the kitchen. Another freedom to luxuriate in.
He switched on the lights, pleased to notice there was no obvious sign of his earlier violence. He wasn’t naïve enough to think he’d destroyed all the forensic traces of what had taken place, but he wasn’t anticipating any forensic scientists examining the place. To the casual observer, to the estate agent who would soon be selling the place, there was nothing amiss.
Vance opened the fridge and laughed out loud. Terry had clearly done a commando raid on Marks and Spencer. Ready meals, fresh meat and veg, fruit, milk, champagne and freshly squeezed orange juice. He pulled out the fizz and popped the cork one-handed while he decided what to eat. He settled on some Chinese appetisers, but struggled to make sense of the oven controls. Eventually he worked it out, but the edge had gone from his good mood.
As he poured a second glass of champagne, he recalled what lay behind the spike of anxiety that had awoken him. He hadn’t checked the camera feeds. That was mostly because he hadn’t actually explored the house before exhaustion had knocked the feet from under him. If he’d seen a computer, it would have reminded him.
He prowled through the darkened house, not wanting to draw attention by snapping lights on and off. He found a dining room, a TV room, a sitting room and finally, tucked away at the back of the house, a study. The soft moonlight from outside was enough to navigate by and he crossed to the desk, turning on a lamp that cast a pool of light over the dark wooden desk. Terry had clearly run out of imagination by the time he’d got to the study. A big desk, an extravagantly padded leather chair and a credenza were the sole furnishings. A laptop sat on the desk, a printer on the credenza. Vance assumed the oblong box on the window sill that flashed a trembling array of blue lights at him was the wireless router. He’d seen pictures of routers on the Internet, but never the real thing until now.
