20
Nicci took the tube to Clapham South, skirted the southern tip of the Common and set off along Nightingale Lane. Julia Hadley’s postal address was Wandsworth rather than Clapham and, turning right off the main road, Nicci soon found herself in a leafy enclave of smart Edwardian family homes, known locally as ‘’twixt the commons’. Julia had advised her not to drive; parking was strictly residential permit holders only and the roads she walked down had a liberal smattering of late model Audis, Mercs and four-by-fours.
The house turned out to be a tastefully restored semi with the original art nouveau stained-glass in the front door. Nicci rang the brass bell and let her gaze wander over the black-and-white tiled path and the neat privet hedge. She knew from Julia Hadley’s appearance that she leant towards the arty, so the house probably reflected her taste more than her late partner’s.
Nicci had to ring the doorbell again before a bleary-eyed Julia appeared. She was swathed in a purple bathrobe and full of profuse apologies; their appointment was for eleven, somehow she’d overslept. Nicci followed her along the hallway and into a light, airy kitchen, glancing in the adjacent rooms as she went. The decor was expensive with original features and retro touches balanced against decidedly modern furniture. More Julia than Helen? It was hard to tell.
The kitchen was built around two large slabs of granite set at right angles. Julia invited Nicci to take a stool at one of them as she busied herself with the coffee machine. As Julia shuffled from sink to cupboard, her fluffy purple mules slapping the polished ceramic floor, Nicci watched her.
The shoulders seemed permanently hunched, the bags under her eyes were worse than at their previous meeting, but through some effort of supreme will she chattered on. ‘My cleaning lady usually comes in on a Tuesday, but her youngest broke his arm. So that’s why the place is in such a mess.’
Nicci glanced around; there was a newspaper on the table, a plate, a mug and two empty wine bottles on the draining board.
‘I don’t think anyone’d call it messy.’
She hadn’t expected this comment to be controversial but it sent a jolt through Julia Hadley. ‘Helen was very particular. She liked everything to be neat and tidy.’
Julia’s palm flew to her mouth to suppress the tears. ‘Some days I . . . I wake up and for a moment I think I can hear her moving about.’
Nicci knew just what she meant. It was why she’d moved. In the old place she’d end up going from room to room, feeling her daughter’s presence, hearing noises, opening a bedroom door and expecting to find Sophie there. She took a deep breath. It was tempting to tell Julia Hadley that she too knew all about loss, but that wouldn’t be professional. As a police officer she’d learnt to compartmentalize her feelings. You didn’t take the job home; equally, you kept your private life and personal pain separate from the job. Too much empathy could be dangerous, it clouded the judgement.
Adjusting her position on the high leather stool, Nicci smiled and changed tack. ‘Such a lovely house. I’ve never had much of an eye for design, colours, that sort of thing. My mother despairs of me.’
Julia pulled a tissue from the pocket of her robe and blew her nose. ‘My first job after university, I worked for a design magazine.’
‘It shows. What do you do now?’
‘I set up a small PR consultancy with a couple of friends. Most of our clients are in the arts.’
The distraction seemed to be working; Julia was more composed. Nicci continued to shepherd the conversation along: ‘That’s very brave – starting your own business.’
‘I see no point in working for someone else if you can be your own boss.’ Julia tossed her head and Nicci got a glimpse of the grit behind the grief. Julia Hadley was a businesswoman in her own right, not just Helen’s partner.
‘A couple of different things have come up that it’d be useful to talk about.’ Opening her bag, Nicci took out a notebook and one of Eddie Lunt’s pap shots, though she kept it concealed. ‘If you feel up to it, of course.’
Whatever emotions were washing through her, Julia had got a grip. She gave Nicci a tight smile. ‘No problem. Fire away.’
‘I gather Helen was taking a political interest in the legalization of drugs.’
‘Well, you were in the police, weren’t you?’ Julia huffed. ‘You know it makes sense.’
Nicci gave no reply; she wasn’t getting into that. ‘And she went on some kind of fact-finding mission to Latin America?’
‘It’s what back-benchers do. Pick a controversial topic in the hope it’ll get them noticed.’
‘So Helen did this off her own bat?’
‘Yeah. But as a lawyer she was pretty clued up on the subject. She’d defended plenty of drug mules. The harm comes from organized crime, not ordinary people snorting a couple of lines on a Saturday night.’
‘Is that what you and Helen did?’ It was a risky follow-up, but Nicci knew she had to push it to get anything useful.
Julia merely shot her a cynical glance. ‘You really are an ex-cop, aren’t you?’
‘Sorry.’ Nicci smiled. ‘I’m not being judgemental, just trying to build up a picture.’
Julia drew the folds of the bathrobe around her for protection. ‘Helen didn’t do drugs at all. She hardly drank. She hated losing control. I’ve smoked dope since I was at uni. Helen never joined me. She was a curious mixture of puritan and liberal. She didn’t judge anyone else. But she sure as hell judged herself.’
Julia started to suck the thumbnail of her left hand. Nicci noted the tension, the jitteriness in her glance. Was she using cannabis now, to medicate her grief? Nicci suspected something stronger.
Mirroring Julia’s behaviour, Nicci examined her own thumbnail, then glanced directly at her, as if a random thought had just occurred to her. ‘Robert Hollister? A contact at Labour Party HQ has suggested that Helen was in line to be his PPS.’
‘Well, she hadn’t mentioned that to me. But I wouldn’t be at all surprised.’
‘Why not?’
‘It was Robert who encouraged Helen to run for Parliament. The Hollisters are old family friends. Robert was a student of Charles’ at Oxford. Charles Warner is Helen’s father.’ Julia blinked a couple of times. ‘He’s seventy-two – this has really hit him hard.’ She swallowed, her chin quivered. ‘Poor old Charles.’
Nicci nodded and waited. Julia glanced at her then turned away. She seemed at a loss.
A tense frown had gathered between her brows, she tried to ease it away with a finger. ‘Do you want to see her room?’
An abrupt change of subject – Nicci wondered why. She scanned Julia but found no clue. Was Helen’s connection with Robert Hollister an issue? The way Julia had responded to his name didn’t suggest that. What seemed more likely was that she was simply finding it painful, having to explain her dead partner’s life to a stranger.
She followed Julia upstairs to a large bay-windowed room at the front of the house. There was a Victorian chandelier hanging from the elaborately moulded ceiling, but the rest of the room was white and minimalist with a glass desk under the window and a low leather and chrome Barcelona chair.
Julia Hadley sat down on the bed and ran her fingers over the delicately woven threads of the pure white duvet. ‘She also had a study at the back of the house. The police took that apart. But Helen spent more time here, she needed her own space.’
Nicci walked over to the window. The curtains were pale peach but heavy and opulent, she could imagine how cosy it made the room when they were closed at night.
It was a room to envy, the opposite of her own bleak, curtainless cell. ‘This was a sort of sanctuary then?’
Julia seemed about to speak, then hesitated. Nicci could see that she was struggling. With her feelings, her conscience? Hard to tell. Nicci waited.
Finally Julia looked up at her, her fingers plucking nervously at the fabric of the duvet. ‘There’s something I need to show you. Something I didn’t show the police.’ She got up. ‘
I won’t be a minute.’
Nicci watched her leave the room. A bit of a rocky start? This was always going to be a slow process, but if they were to get anywhere she had to dig deep, and Julia Hadley’s resistance was already apparent.
She ran her own fingers over the pristine duvet. Partners, but they had separate rooms. Should she read any significance into that? And could Eddie possibly be right – had something been going on with Robert Hollister? Nicci wanted to resist that notion, mostly out of distaste for Eddie. She was still pondering these questions when Julia returned.
She held out a Nokia smartphone. ‘My old phone. I use this and a BlackBerry.’ She tapped in the PIN. ‘I keep this for personal calls. My firm pays for the BlackBerry.’
Clicking on Helen’s name, Julia scrolled to the last text and offered the phone to Nicci. ‘I got this from Helen about five o’clock on the day she—’ The look on Julia’s face was pure sorrow.
Nicci took the phone and read:
Hey babe – don’t think badly of me. I never wanted to hurt you. Politics, what a shit-show! I really thought I understood the game and was smart enough to play it. How dumb am I? Love you always xx
Nicci read the message through twice. She was aware of Julia’s eyes upon her and the tension pulsing off her. ‘What do you think she means?’
‘I’ve no idea.’
Nicci didn’t believe that for one moment. ‘Had she done something to hurt you?’
‘No. Of course not.’ Julia’s eyes were glassy with tears.
‘So are you reading this as a possible suicide note? Is that why you didn’t show it to the police?’
‘No! It’s confusing . . . I don’t know what to think. I just can’t believe that Helen would kill herself.’
‘Is it that you don’t want to believe?’
‘No!’
Julia plumped down on the bed, sending ripples across the soft, undulating duvet. Nicci was keeping herself firmly behind the professional facade, but her heart went out to Julia, locked in misery. She wondered about the hidden nooks and crannies, the places we keep the agonizing thoughts we try to hide even from ourselves. We all have them, she knew that. And now she was getting a glimpse of Julia’s. Nicci turned back to the text, scanned it once again and pondered. What was Helen trying to say to her partner on the day she died? Maybe the police investigation had got to the truth after all. Perhaps Helen Warner did commit suicide.
21
Kaz stepped out of the coffee shop and set off at a brisk pace. She didn’t run, but she didn’t hang about. And she didn’t look back. It was a long time since she’d done any serious thieving, but she hadn’t forgotten the basics. She turned left down Gracechurch Street. Spying the red circle and blue bar of the tube roundel, she headed for Monument station. As she dipped into the entrance she allowed herself a brief backward glance. Just a rolling sea of faces, no one focused on her, no pursuit. So she hadn’t lost the touch.
She bought the cheapest ticket and boarded a westbound Circle line train. The late morning lull meant she found a corner seat with ease. Only then did she open the briefcase. It was good-quality leather, undoubtedly Italian, a zipped compartment at the back, the larger front pouch secured with buckled straps. She unfastened these and looked inside – a laptop in a carrying sleeve, two phones, a hard-backed notebook, a couple of cheap gel pens and a Mars bar. There were a series of leather pockets sewn into the inside wall. Kaz checked through them: an out-of-date lottery ticket, two different coffee franchise loyalty cards and a foil-wrapped condom. She sighed. Not a bad haul if you had the means to fence the goods. But what she’d been hoping for was a wallet and cash.
She pulled open the zip on the rear compartment and found an Oyster card in a plastic holder. At least that was something of immediate use. Tucked behind it was a five-pound note.
Disappointed, she sat back in her seat and stared out of the black window into the rumbling tunnel beyond. What she needed was a plan or at least some notion of what to do next. She’d hoped the briefcase would furnish her with the means to get a cheap hotel room. A safe bolthole where she would have time to think. Clearly, laying her hands on some cash would require some serious pickpocketing, and she wasn’t sure she was up to that.
Scooting her fingers one last time round the fabric lining of the briefcase she came across a small lump. Further investigation revealed another tiny pocket. She pulled the Velcro apart and felt inside: a plastic pouch. Glancing down into the bag, she turned it over to examine the contents: three blue capsules. Medicinal or recreational? Hard to tell. She smiled wryly to herself, time was she’d have popped them anyway. But now? Since she got news of Helen’s death, the possibility of chemical release had been niggling at the fringes of consciousness. Just a little something to take the edge off, whispered the monkey brain. Who would know? Who would care? Kaz gave the monkey a mental slap and refastened the briefcase. She took a deep breath. Now more than ever she needed her wits at their sharpest.
The train rattled on westwards, passing through Embankment and Westminster. Kaz thought about her Glasgow life. Her new identity under the witness protection scheme was starting to seem more attractive by the minute. Yet she’d always felt she was lacking something. She’d moved through her new life in a bubble, insulating herself from contact and emotion. She had acquaintances but no friends. Much as she enjoyed the classes and had thrown herself into the work, it somehow never really engaged her at a deeper level. Nothing did. The only thing that dug right down, that she felt in her gut, was her passion for Helen. Helen, who’d played her and rejected her, Helen, who was dead.
At Sloane Square a trio of posh girls loaded down with shopping bags plonked down opposite her. They seemed oblivious to their surroundings, occupying the space as of right, their boisterous conversation dominating the carriage. Kaz felt envious, not so much of the money as the ease. She wondered if she could ever achieve that sense of entitlement. What would she have to do? She thought of the blue pills in the briefcase. Maybe they’d do the trick.
The girls got up to alight at South Kensington. Kaz let her gaze skim over the moving letters of the station sign and she had the glimmering of an idea. There was one person who’d always been in her corner, who hadn’t dismissed her as some useless slag. Mike Dawson had taught her life drawing and his recommendation had secured her a place at a top college, Glasgow School of Art. At the time of Joey’s trial, he’d sent her a postcard wishing her luck in his elaborate spidery handwriting. He was an odd bloke, mostly unreadable. Still, he was the one person in her life who’d gone out of his way to be kind to her, though he had nothing to gain by it.
She pulled out her phone and rapidly scrolled through the contacts list. There he was: Mike Dawson, Onslow Square, South Kensington. She glanced at the open carriage door: she had about fifteen seconds to decide.
22
Nicci sat facing Julia Hadley across the granite counter of her swish kitchen. They had cups of coffee in front of them, but Julia was ignoring hers. The phone with Helen’s text sat on the polished surface between them.
Nicci gave her a sympathetic smile. ‘Okay, I’ll give you my opinion. Guilt, certainly. And contrition. Does that mean she’d decided to take her own life? It’s a possibility – but only one possibility.’
Julia raised her eyes, they were moist, over-bright. ‘Are you just saying that to make me feel better?’
‘No, that’s not my job. You’ve hired us to discover the truth.’ Nicci shifted, moving her foot to rebalance on the high stool. She could sense the tautness in Julia, the instinct to hold back pulling against her desire to tell. ‘That’s probably going to include things you don’t want to look at.’
The probe had gone in. Julia clutched her arms about her tightly, trying to hold herself together.
Nicci watched the interior struggle. ‘Someone gets murdered, that’s an extreme thing. About the most extreme thing. Aspects of their life come to light, secrets, deceptions. It’s a nightmare for those le
ft.’
Julia shot her a resentful glance then her whole body slumped; the internal dam had burst. ‘Okay, if you want to know, I think she was having an affair. Possibly the papers or some website had got hold of it. Maybe that’s what the text was about: she thought it was going to break.’
Nicci simply nodded in the hope she’d go on. Instead Julia started to cry, quietly, discretely. Picking up the box of tissues on the worktop, Nicci slid it in Julia’s direction. ‘Do you know who?’
Julia shook her head briskly and dabbed her eyes; she didn’t know, she refused to know.
As Nicci continued to wait, questions skittered through her brain. Was Eddie Lunt right? Had Helen been sleeping with Robert Hollister? Nicci resisted the notion, but the detective in her couldn’t ignore it. ‘Are we talking a man or a woman?’
Julia’s eyes crinkled into something approaching amusement and she looked up suddenly. ‘Helen was a lesbian!’
Nicci shrugged. ‘Some people are a hundred per cent one thing or the other, but in my experience that’s not true of everyone. Maybe Helen was closer to the middle of the spectrum than you’d like to think.’
Julia stared then gave a short, sour laugh. ‘Because she was beautiful? She couldn’t really be gay because she was beautiful? That’s a very clichéd view, very male too. Also you’re the detective, answer me this – if you were an ambitious politician and bisexual, would you opt for the lesbian tag? It’s not the smartest career move, is it?’ Julia plucked another tissue from the box and blew her nose. Annoyance fizzed off her then she sighed. ‘Sorry. I don’t mean to be rude.’
‘Rude’s fine.’ Nicci painted on a smile. ‘I want to know what you really think.’ She put her hand on the counter between them, reaching out but not touching. ‘Listen, Julia, we need to come to an understanding. Or rather, you need to make a decision.’
The Mourner Page 11
