by Alison James
‘The guy who owns it, the landlord, is called Sunny. Sunil Khara.’
Thirty-Three
As Rajavi drove them back to the police station, Rachel checked the balance of the Find Lola Jade JustGiving account. Total raised: £64,761.
She phoned Lee Knightley. ‘Lee, quick as you can: get me an update on the amount in Michelle Harper’s JustGiving account.’
Rajavi walked slowly into the station, one hand pressing into the small of her back, the other radioing a patrol car to go and find Sunil Khara.
‘These interview rooms are earning their keep this week,’ she quipped, lowering herself awkwardly into her desk chair. ‘Are you okay to wait around a bit longer, or do you need to get back?’
Rachel shook her head. ‘And miss out on being there when you find Lola Jade? No chance.’
As they waited, she checked her email inbox.
Crowdfunding account currently has a zero balance. Remaining £34,761 transferred to M. Harper’s account on Friday, then same amount withdrawn in cash. See below.
Lee had attached a screen grab of the statement.
* * *
‘Don’t know nothing about no rental house.’
Sunny Khara was a short, good-looking young man, his black quiff glossy with hair product and his mannerisms distinctly cocky. Having declined legal advice, he leaned back in his chair, arms folded, crotch pushed forward as close to Rachel as possible. The heavily pregnant Rajavi was ignored.
‘We’ve had information regarding an arrangement you’ve made with a woman called Michelle Harper. Basically her paying to live in a house you own in Albert Park.’ Rachel crossed her legs and swivelled her body sideways to delineate a physical barrier between herself and the thrusting groin. This was why she never wore a skirt to work.
‘Don’t own no house in Albert Park.’
Rajavi sighed and tapped her pen on the table. ‘Mr Khara, we can very easily cross-check with the Land Registry. That will tell us what you own and where.’
He grinned smugly, tweaking his quiff. ‘Seriously, though. You think any of my investments are in my own name? Ladies, please, I’m a businessman! Never heard of the concept of a holding company?’
Rachel ached to slap him. Since this wasn’t possible, she pulled herself up straight, emphasising that she was a couple of inches taller than he was.
‘Given that you know so much, you’ll also know that the maximum sentence for perverting the course of justice is life in prison. Life, Mr Khara. A “businessman” like yourself…’ she made air quotes, ‘is going to struggle to run his empire from behind bars.’
His chin jutted forward in the same plane as his crotch.
Rajavi hauled herself to her feet. ‘Perhaps you’d like some time to think about it? I’m sure we can accommodate you in one of our best en suite cells. But first you’ll need to accompany me to the front desk so our lovely custody sergeant can charge you.’
Khara held up his hands. As Rachel suspected, he didn’t want any moral issues to get in the way of his ducking and diving. ‘Okay, okay, ladies: you win. The house is number 16 Osborne Terrace.’
* * *
In the end, it all boiled down to numbers, and symmetry.
In Albert Park, the even house numbers ran down the south side of the streets; the odd numbers were north-facing. So, with Jubilee Terrace and Osborne Terrace running back to back, number 17 Jubilee had number 16 Osborne directly behind it, separated by the ginnel, their back gates only a few feet apart. You could leave Lisa Urquhart’s house via the kitchen door, cross the back yard and enter the yard of 16 Osborne Terrace within a second, without being seen from either street. It meant that the two properties were effectively adjoined.
Rachel stood in the ginnel, admiring the staggering neatness of the plan, while she and Leila Rajavi waited for the tactical support vehicle to arrive. How easy it had been for Michelle to give the impression she was living at her sister’s house when in fact she was in a separate home only feet away. To pass ‘Harry’ through the back gate so he could go to school with Lisa and Kirstie’s children. Not to Lola Jade’s school, but a different one, where no one knew her. And Michelle herself could come and go through the front of Lisa’s house, with no one suspecting she was actually living in a different building altogether.
The inside of number 16 was dark and dismal, the sort of tatty leased property where the landlord was happy to take the rent while letting the place go to rot. The walls were covered with Artex wallpaper stained ochre with tobacco smoke. There were signs of recent habitation in the kitchen: tea bags, a wine bottle and crisp packets in the bin, clean dishes on the drainer. Upstairs, in the two bedrooms, the double bed and the single bed were made but had clearly been slept in. At the foot of the single bed was a familiar sight. Katy Bear. And in the larger bedroom, propped behind one of the curtains in a hasty attempt to hide it, was the huge airbrushed portrait. Lola Jade Harper leaning on a plastic Doric column in all her glory.
Leila Rajavi came to stand beside Rachel, and for a few seconds they were silent.
‘My God. We found her.’ The usually calm DS Rajavi sounded close to tears. ‘Only she’s gone again.’
Rachel touched her arm briefly before pulling on latex gloves and starting to search through the main bedroom. In the wardrobe there was a large purple suitcase: one of the matching pair Michelle had taken from Willow Way. She searched through the entire house and the storage shed in the paved yard, but the other suitcase was nowhere to be found.
She turned her attention back to Michelle’s bedroom, rooting through the drawers in the cheap plywood chest. Suddenly she stopped, her heart racing. A pair of dark blue gloves made from a thin thermal fabric. She examined them, then turned them inside out when she felt something lumpy in the fingers.
There in her palm were three tiny rhinestones.
Rachel recognised them instantly. They were from Michelle Harper’s sparkly manicure. On the top shelf of the wardrobe was Michelle’s missing passport and a box for a new, unregistered mobile phone. The handset inside was gone, but Michelle had failed to realise that the barcode label had a record of the phone’s number in tiny print.
In the single bedroom, a forensic officer was pulling items out of the wardrobe: boys’ school uniform and sweatshirts and some pastel-coloured girls’ clothes in the same size.
‘Look.’ Rajavi, who had been helping to search the bathroom, came in with a packet of brown hair dye and a pair of hairdressing scissors. ‘There are still a couple of strands of blonde hair trapped in a crack in the bathroom lino. What’s the betting it’s Lola’s, from when Michelle cut it off and turned her into Harry.’
‘Ma’am.’ One of the Tyvek-suited men handed something to Rajavi. ‘I think you need to see this: we found it in the waste bin.’
It was a screwed-up piece of paper: a half-completed school registration form. The school was St Francis of Assisi Catholic Primary School, Inglewood, and the name of the pupil Jasmine Gabrielle Hutchins. Born 13 September 2009. The space under ‘Names of Parents’ was still blank.
‘Of course,’ said Rachel with a wry smile. ‘The name of a Disney princess and the name of the chief of the angels. What else for Michelle’s princess angel?’ She turned to the forensics officer. ‘Was there anything else with this surname on? Any mother’s details?’
He shook his head. ‘Just this, with the kid’s name. But there was a laptop hidden under the sofa cushions. Maybe that will give us more.’
* * *
On her way back into London, Rachel took a short detour off the South Circular and drove to Mark Brickall’s flat. There was no response when she rang his doorbell, even though she could see the faint gleam of a light behind the curtains of his living room. She phoned him instead.
‘What?’ His tone was terse.
‘I was just passing your flat, and I wondered if you wanted to go for a drink and a chat. Or even a meal and a chat.’
‘What for?’
She sig
hed. ‘I really need a sounding board. Looks like I was right about the teddy, and the purple suitcase. And the picture.’
‘Prince, are you smoking crack?’
‘No. My brain is fried, that’s all, and I need to download before the circuits burn out.’
‘Well, sorry, boss, but I’m at five-a-side footy. And right now I don’t even know if I still have a career as a copper at all. So if you need a cosy little chat about case evidence, I suggest you phone your gal pal at Surrey Police.’
He hung up.
Despondent, Rachel drove the mile and a half to the western edge of Crystal Palace Park. She bought a cup of tea from a truck serving hot drinks, and walked into the maze, her feet making a satisfying crunching sound on the frozen gravel. It was bitterly cold; the dove-grey sky streaked pale pink, and heavy with snow. A few dog walkers made the most of the last remaining minutes of daylight, but otherwise the place was deserted. So rare ever to be alone in London, thought Rachel, to have time to think. That was why she liked to run very early in the morning, rather than after work.
And how appropriate to find herself in a maze. That was what this case had been: a series of false turns and blind alleys leading nowhere. And at the centre of the maze was Michelle Harper. After many years as a criminal investigator, Rachel understood that offenders didn’t sit around congratulating themselves on the genius of their evil plan. Most deviant behaviour was either stress-based or environment-based, and as a result, felons had no problem justifying their decisions to themselves. Increment by increment, their actions could become more and more extreme, and yet they could still rationalise what they had done. Some – like Michelle – were so personality-disordered that they saw themselves as the ones who were being wronged. Their starting place was the normal sort of life challenge that can face any of us, and the end point was behaviour that most human beings would regard as abhorrent. In between there was a logical pathway that in their minds justified every step they took. Rachel was quite sure that in Michelle Harper’s mind she was victim, not villain.
For Michelle, the first step had been giving birth to a child of the wrong sex. She wanted a girl, not a boy. And because she hadn’t got what she wanted, because that rendered her hard done by, quietly suffocating her infant son was what she needed to do. It gave her the chance to start afresh. And when she had her little girl – her princess angel – this appalling act was vindicated. She probably told herself that it could have been an ear or chest infection that finished him off as easily as a gently placed hand over the mouth and nose.
But then Gavin threatened her with not only divorce, but losing custody of her hard-won prize: her daughter. How alarmed she must have been when she realised that he had a good chance of winning that battle, and it was that alarm that prompted her next step. She calculated how public knowledge of Gavin’s desire to take Lola Jade from her could work to her advantage. Because if Lola disappeared, everyone would assume that Gavin was responsible. All she needed was to set the scene – the ‘abduction’ attempt, the suggestion of sexual abuse – and ultimately no one would believe that Gavin deserved Lola Jade more than she did.
Lola Jade was only required to disappear for a short time: hence the secret room at 57 Willow Way. Michelle just needed to keep her shut away, adequately silenced by whatever pharmaceutical means, until the immediate fuss died down. She had injected her daughter with some kind of sedative – clumsily, which explained the telltale specks of blood on Lola’s bed and the carpet of the hidden room.
Rachel’s guess was that it was during this initial period that the penny dropped for Michelle. If Lola was miraculously ‘found’, the custody battle clock would simply be reset. Gavin would be exonerated of taking his daughter, and instead of her husband being scrutinised, the spotlight would be directed onto her: Michelle. Awkward questions would be asked, and would put her role as mother at risk.
So Lola Jade had to stay hidden. Another location had to be found, and another identity. Even a mother as warped as Michelle was going to struggle to keep her daughter locked in a room forever. By renting Osborne Terrace and inventing Harry Brown, Michelle could release Lola Jade back into the world and simultaneously take a step back, distance herself. There was nothing to connect her to Harry, until Ben told Carly Wethers the secret and she threatened to intervene.
Having come so far, and created such a successful illusion, Rachel doubted Michelle would struggle to justify using murder to silence Carly. She had suffocated her own son and got away with it; and in patterns of criminal behaviour a success like that greatly boosted the perpetrator’s confidence and daring next time round.
But Rachel now saw clearly the one remaining problem for Michelle. She wrapped her hands tightly round her takeout cup to keep them warm as she walked, turning back in to where the maze started just as the first flake of snow floated silently from the sky. Harry Brown was ultimately no use to Michelle, because Harry was a boy and Michelle wanted a daughter, a mirror image of herself to mould and control. And she had to be stopped before she could carry out the final step in the process: the incarnation of Jasmine Gabrielle.
Thirty-Four
‘Do you remember our friend at Bangla Stores?’
Rachel looked blankly at Leila Rajavi. She had returned to Eastwell at first light having barely slept, and was exhausted. Rajavi, too, looked tired and uncomfortable, repeatedly shifting in her chair and pressing her fists into the small of her back.
‘Sorry, cramp,’ she explained. ‘The place opposite Happy Nails. We used their security camera to pick up Michelle giving Stacey Fisher the cash.’
Rachel nodded.
‘The owner heard about Carly Wethers’ death, and remembered seeing her on his own camera footage. So he brought it in last night.’ She opened a file on her computer and Rachel stood up to see it better. Carly’s curls were partially obscured by her Peruvian-style knitted hat, but it was definitely her. She went into the salon and stood near the door, gesticulating at Michelle. Michelle stood up and said something back, shaking her head. The date on the footage was 1 December, about thirty-six hours before Carly died.
‘We’ll get a better idea what was said by interviewing the other salon employees,’ Rajavi said. ‘But this gives us a clear possibility that Michelle knew Carly Wethers was TruthTella.’ She winced again, and rubbed at her back, squirming in her chair. ‘And we have Carly’s DNA found on Michelle’s gloves, the ones in 16 Osborne Terrace. Plus, DNA from Lola Jade was found on the inside of that big purple suitcase.’
‘She probably used it to transport Lola from the house in Willow Way to their new rental. It must be just about big enough to fit a young child. God knows what she thought was going on, poor kid.’
Rajavi shuddered. ‘The good news is: the CPS are now happy that we have enough to charge Michelle with Carly Wethers’ murder.’ She gave a rueful smile.
‘The bad news is: we can’t find her,’ Rachel supplied. ‘She disappeared at exactly the moment that first leaked headline came out; the one we had to deny. I’ll bet my mortgage that’s what sent her to ground. Until then, I reckon she thought she’d pulled it off.’
‘They’re working on the log from the burner phone that was found at 16 Osborne Terrace, and the laptop data should be back…’ Rajavi waved a hand at DC Coles, who was holding up some papers triumphantly, ‘right about now.’
‘The browser history,’ he said, fetching a second copy for Rachel so that the two women could read in unison.
‘I love search-engine histories,’ said Rajavi with satisfaction. ‘They’re like how-to-commit-a-crime manuals.’
It was all there, interleaved with a myriad innocent domestic enquiries such as How to replace a fridge light and When is my recycling collected? Back in May, Michelle had asked the internet what dose of propofol would sedate a child weighing fifty-five pounds, and how long it would take to wear off. She wanted to know where to buy it online and how to inject it. Much more recently, she wanted to know what sort of
implement would disable a Yale lock, how long suffocation by smothering took in a small adult, how to obtain a fake passport.
‘Jesus,’ said Rachel. ‘I’m looking forward to hearing her explain this lot.’
Rajavi turned to the last part of the printout. ‘Have you seen this? She’s been googling cheap long-haul flights.’
‘Let me guess – to Australia.’
‘How did you know?’
‘Because I looked up St Francis Assisi primary school in Inglewood, at two in the morning when I was still awake. It’s in Sydney.’
Rajavi went to give her a high-five, then turned away and grimaced.
‘Are you okay? Not a contraction, I hope.’
‘Just heartburn. And horrendous lower backache. All a normal part of late pregnancy, apparently.’
Rachel turned back to the printout. ‘There’s no sign of her booking any e-tickets, though… Of course not!’ She slapped her forehead. ‘She can’t use a credit card in her own name: that would leave a digital trail. She’s got to use cash: the cash she withdrew from the crowdfunding account. And that means using an agent.’
Rajavi read down the last page. ‘She’s googled “Travel agents near me” and then clicked on one in West Croydon called Magic Tours.’
‘Very apt.’ Rachel stood up and pulled on her coat. ‘Time for our own magical mystery tour.’
* * *
Magic Tours was at the down-at-heel end of the London Road. It had a scruffy shopfront and was just big enough to fit one desk and three chairs. This morning it was manned by a heavy woman with dyed auburn hair and a name badge that read Magda Sokolova. She was still in the process of opening up the shop, and reluctantly admitted Rachel and DS Rajavi, sighing at the inconvenience even after they had showed their warrant cards.
