‘Yes.’ Fiona swallowed, lacing her fingers on top of her lap, unable to shake the feeling that somehow he did not believe her. ‘She promised she was going to report all this to you.’
‘Did she say that?’ His thin fingers tapped briefly on the table, as though he was thinking. ‘She might have mentioned it to one of my colleagues, but looking at this,’ he glanced at his own screen, ‘I don’t see any record of it.’
Oh, Madison, thought Fiona, feeling the sting of embarrassment. You only had to do one thing.
‘So,’ asked Linklater, ‘was she seeing anybody?’
‘Well, she was until recently. A guy called Caspar Schmidt.’ She crossed her arms over her belly, remembering that embarrassing phone call.
‘A long-term partner, then, aye?’
‘I suppose – they’d been dating for about a year. But he wasn’t always about. He goes abroad for his work, places like Liberia, Sierra Leone, for three months at a time.’
Linklater folded his arms. ‘So, she must have started seeing him quite quickly after this relationship with Dominic Tate ended?’
He was sharp, she realised.
‘Um, yes.’
‘How quickly?’
‘Um, well, almost immediately.’ Fiona could feel herself flushing scarlet. ‘To be honest, I think there might have been an element of … crossover.’
‘Hence the ugly row in the car on New Year’s Eve?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Did this Caspar know about the stalking?’
‘Um, he did the first time it happened. He didn’t seem to when we spoke just now. She’d finished with him about three weeks ago and he seemed quite upset about it. Angry.’
‘Is that so?’ He looked interested.
Fiona bit her lip. ‘Yeah. She finished with him over the phone and didn’t give him an explanation.’
‘Angry, you say?’ He tilted his head at her. ‘Angry enough to do something about it?’
‘I …’ The memory of that call lingered. ‘I don’t think he was that type of guy. On the phone, he sounded annoyed because she stiffed him for half a five-hundred euro deposit, but not heartbroken. And anyway, he couldn’t do anything even if he wanted to.’
Inspector Linklater shot a look at her. ‘Oh yes? Why not?’
‘They sent him to Sierra Leone in December and he knew he wasn’t going to get any home leave until March.’ She played with the little silver ring on her pinky. ‘He wouldn’t have left without permission. He’s pretty passionate about his work. Possibly the only thing he was passionate about, Mads used to say.’
‘Is that why she ended the relationship?’
‘I don’t know,’ Fiona admitted helplessly. ‘I didn’t even know she had, and he said she never told him why.’ She knitted her fingers more tightly together. ‘I suppose – there might have been someone new on the scene, perhaps – and I think it’s been quite … intense on the dig. She told me they worked every day except Christmas and Boxing Day, because the site is in such danger from erosion and the sea, and I know she was exhausted …’
‘Is that why you came all this way to see her?’ asked Linklater, watching her carefully.
‘Well,’ Fiona licked her dry lips, ‘yeah, I guess. I mean, she said she had something she wanted to show me that was important, but to be honest, I think that was an excuse. I think it was to do with Dom. I know she was having a difficult time at the dig, and they seemed to think she wasn’t focusing properly. She was desperate for me to come up, so …’ Fiona held out her hands. ‘I did.’
‘And when did you last have contact with her?’
‘Personal contact? Wednesday lunchtime, the day before I left Cambridge. We spoke on the phone. She’d walked off Helly Holm to the car park to get a signal, to say she was looking forward to seeing me. There were texts afterwards, but I didn’t – I didn’t speak to her in person after that.’
‘Do you have these texts?’
‘I do. I put them all together, and her emails, and the tweet, into a ZIP file. I can send it to you if you give me your email address.’
‘You know the drill then?’ he said, raising a cynical eyebrow.
‘Yeah,’ said Fiona. ‘From the first trial.’
‘Well, that would be very useful, thank you. Now, do you know if there is anyone other than this Dominic Tate that might wish Madison harm?’
Of course, Fiona realised, this was where it was all tending. Someone had wanted to hurt Madison. It was one thing to be perpetually exasperated with her high-handed and reckless ways, but talking about it here in this interrogation room with Inspector Linklater and his cold grey eyes made a chill sink through her.
This was happening. This was real.
‘I …’ A panoply of Madison’s furious exes was suddenly before her. ‘She had relationships that had ended,’ she said, ‘but I can’t think of anyone else that would be angry enough to pursue her up here. At least,’ she qualified again, ‘not that she mentioned to me.’
‘I see,’ he said, bending back down to the screen, carefully typing everything in with two fingers.
She watched him, pressing her lips together. ‘There’s … there’s something else.’
‘Oh yes?’
‘She … well, the owners of Langmire caught her with another man. They assumed it was Caspar so it was a bit embarrassing for them when he …’
‘When you say caught her with another man …?’
‘They’d seen him coming and going. And they met him once.’
‘Did they know his name, the owners?’
‘No. He wasn’t introduced to them.’
‘And she never mentioned him to you?’
‘No.’
He held her gaze. ‘Would you say she was a secretive person, then?’
Fiona shrugged helplessly. ‘No. Not before now. I’d always thought she was completely frank with me, no matter what light it cast her in. I knew she was no saint.’
‘Has she ever vanished before?’
A moment of thinking, and she was aware of him noticing it. ‘No. Never like this.’
But in that room, Fiona felt how weak and tenuous her connection to Madison must look. There was so much that Fiona couldn’t answer for, and she had a sense of how unreliable she must appear. Practically anybody on Orkney could have told him more about Madison’s state of mind, her romantic arrangements, her secret fears.
She felt shut out, judged almost, but also a growing, furtive anger. She had been put in this position, come up all this way, despite her better judgement, and Madison hadn’t even felt that she’d owed her the truth about anything.
She felt her jaw ache and realised she’d been gritting her teeth.
‘Well, thanks very much, Ms Grey.’ Linklater was pulling his things together and now standing up. Clearly they were done. ‘We’ll look into this and be back in touch very soon.’
11
Fontarabia Road, Clapham, London, January 2019
‘What are you doing?’ asked Fiona, astounded. ‘Are you making popcorn right now?’
She sat at the dining table in Madison’s shabby-chic open-plan living room, squinting into her laptop.
‘Yeah, of course,’ called Madison from the tiny kitchen, shoving the microwave door shut and hitting the button. ‘Aren’t we watching a movie?’
Fiona chuckled despite herself. ‘C’mon, Mads, this is serious.’
Madison loomed over her shoulder, pulling her face into a solemn rictus. ‘Is that any better?’ she said, in her best impression of sepulchral bass.
Fiona burst into laughter. ‘Stop that, you mentalist.’
‘All right … Hey, do you want butter on yours?’
‘No thanks, I probably shouldn’t.’
‘Oh, don’t be like that. I’m having butter and look at me, I’m gorgeous.’ Madison plumped herself down on her big blue squashy sofa, spread out her arms and stretched languorously, like a cat. ‘Live a little. Have butter.’
Fiona sigh
ed. ‘Are you ready to look at this yet?’
‘No.’ Madison rolled to her feet. ‘Give me a minute.’ From the kitchen came the erratic snap of popping corn. ‘Do you want a glass of wine?’
‘It’s early, isn’t it?’
‘It’s after five.’
Fiona, surprised, glanced up. ‘Oh God, so it is.’
The sun had sunk while she had been setting up the feed. Through the big picture window returning Saturday shoppers, wrapped in coats and boots, strode through the slush of Fontarabia Road, their heads bowed and shoulders hunched against the sleet. Soon they would be heading out again, to the bars and clubs of London.
‘Time flies,’ Madison called back gaily. ‘Hey, d’you want to put it on the big TV?’
‘Sure. Why not? It might be clearer on there anyway.’
‘White or red?’ asked Madison, coming out to set two glasses on the table.
‘Either.’ Fiona stood up, the laptop under her arm.
There was a sharp ding from the microwave. ‘Is this going to be very boring?’ Madison asked.
‘I’m hoping so,’ muttered Fiona, connecting the laptop to the TV and fiddling with the remote while the smell of melted butter filled the air. ‘That’s what we want.’
‘If you say so.’ Madison reappeared in the doorway carrying a huge bowl of popcorn and a bottle. She set both down, switching on a lamp that bathed the living room in a soft glow. ‘Thanks for sorting this out for me, Fee.’
Fiona snorted out a laugh. ‘Well, let’s see if it’s worked first.’
They sprawled on the sofa, the laptop on Fiona’s thighs. ‘Okay,’ she said, as Madison applied a handful of popcorn to her face. ‘This is the beginning, which is Tuesday morning.’
‘So what’s the plan?’ asked Madison.
‘Seeing if we can spot Dom on the video.’
Madison glanced up at the miniature CCTV camera nestled discreetly in the valance above her dark red curtains. It pointed through the gathered fabric out at Madison’s driveway and the street beyond. ‘Tuesday? Shouldn’t we just start now and go backwards?’
‘I don’t know how to do that,’ said Fiona, somewhat stiffly.
‘Oh,’ said Madison, in an offhand way that managed to both judge Fiona’s incompetence and simultaneously forgive it. ‘And what are we doing here?’
Fiona tried to rein in her impatience. ‘So this “anonymous guy” who we know is Dominic Tate has taken pictures of the house and posted them on Twitter and Instagram, right?’
‘Yeah …’
‘And he must have been stood directly outside to do it, right?’
‘Well, yeah …’
‘So this camera should have filmed him if he’s done it again this week. And if it’s Dom, like we suspect, we’ll have footage of him we can take to the police,’ Fiona finished.
‘Right,’ said Madison slowly, as though this had all been Fiona’s idea rather than her own. ‘But is it illegal to do that? To just hang around outside my house?’
‘No. But it is illegal to threaten to chuck acid over you, Madison.’
‘It is?’
‘Yeah, it’s harassment. You can report him. You can even sue him.’
Madison’s lip curled.
‘What?’
‘To be honest, Fee, if I ignore him he’ll probably fuck off on his own eventually. It’s not as though he’s getting any encouragement.’
‘Mads, I keep telling you, these stalkers, sometimes they don’t need encouragement. They can encourage themselves.’ They’d had this conversation at least three times in the last twenty-four hours.
‘I don’t think he’s crazy, though,’ said Madison. ‘I just think he’s an arsehole. I really think you’re overreacting.’
Fiona silently counted to ten. ‘Trust me, Mads, it doesn’t hurt to be sure.’
‘Yeah.’ Madison settled back into the couch. ‘I’m sorry. I know you’re only here to help.’ A pause. ‘Hey! Shall we get a curry in later on?’
‘Ooh, yeah!’ said Fiona. She was starving, she realised. ‘King Prawn Battari for the win.’
‘Sounds good.’
The picture was very clear on Madison’s big screen TV, and in colour, which Fiona had not been expecting for some reason. In it the ground was laced with clumps of melting snow, and little white divots lingered on the top of the hedge in the front yard. Madison’s old blue Renault Megane rested against the kerb, a neat cap of square snow on its roof, another on its bonnet.
The screen read 21-01-2019 10:26:13, and this time ticked faster as Fiona sped up the feed. Mads poured her a glass of wine.
Fiona took a sip. ‘This is lovely, ta.’
Madison smiled. ‘I’m glad you came round,’ she said, rubbing Fiona’s arm. ‘I feel like I’ve hardly seen you lately.’
‘Yeah, your evil ex is bringing us together. It’s a heart-warming Christmas tale.’
This time Mads’ laughter was uproarious, full-throated. She raised her glass in a toast. ‘Cheers, Dom!’
In the footage, yummy mummies with pushchairs jiggled past, cars swooshed by like flickering phantoms, and the melting snow began to be replaced by a fresh downfall that whirled like a kaleidoscope in speeded-up time. The sky darkened, the flow of people and cars passing by swelled as rush hour began.
‘What does Caspar think of your postage stamp-sized microflat?’ asked Fiona, her eyes still focused on the jittering sprites on screen.
‘It’s “charming”,’ said Madison, in a good imitation of his accent.
‘What are you going to do when he works out you’re not slumming it ironically and this is, like, your actual home?’
Madison grinned. ‘We can cross that bridge when we come to it.’
‘That’s … wait.’ Something had caught her eye.
‘What?’ asked Madison, peering at the screen. ‘I don’t see anything.’
‘That car opposite …’ Fiona paused the feed.
‘There is no car opposite the flat.’
‘On the other side of the road, see? The silver one?’
‘Yeah?’
‘There’s somebody in it and they’ve been sat there for hours now.’
Madison squinted. ‘I can’t see … oh yeah, there is someone in there.’ It was impossible to make anything out of the occupant, who was nothing but a shadow on the very far edge of the picture, obscured by falling snow. She shrugged. ‘Doesn’t matter. That’s not Dom’s car.’
‘You’re sure?’
‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘That’s a Ford Focus. He drives a Beemer. Black. A Seven Series.’ She took a slug of the wine. ‘It was the best thing about him, frankly.’
Madison’s ability to identify cars was one of the many surprising things about her.
‘Hmm,’ said Fiona. ‘They’ve been there for … five hours, and you can only park for four.’
‘They might have a resident’s permit.’
‘If they were local,’ said Fiona, starting the feed again, only this time on normal speed, ‘why would they just sit in their car? I mean, you’d sit in your house if you lived nearby, right? It’s freezing outside right now …’
‘Hmm,’ replied Madison. ‘Maybe.’ She smiled, cocking her head at Fiona, as though seeing something in her for the first time. ‘You’re really good at this, aren’t you?’
‘What? What do you mean?’
‘You missed your calling,’ said Madison. ‘You should have been a spy.’ She raised her brow, as though something had just occurred to her. ‘Maybe you are. After all, you went to Cambridge …’
‘Har har.’
‘You know, I …’
But then the silver car suddenly came alive. The lights flashed on, and it was pulling out, in some haste, nearly slipping in the dirty slush.
It drove past the front of the house, and in that single glimpse there was no doubt – Dominic Tate’s face leered through the driver’s-side window, staring directly at the house, and in those brief seconds of visibility, the e
xpression on his face – a combination of rage and hunger – struck Fiona with a vivid sense of fear.
Even Madison was shocked.
‘What the fuck was that? What was he doing there?’ she asked.
Fiona shook her head. ‘I don’t know. Waiting, probably.’
‘For what?’
‘For you.’ Fiona tapped Play again. They waited together, and then a uniformed figure appeared into the picture from out of the left side of the screen.
‘Parking enforcement!’ Madison tried on a hearty laugh, did not quite succeed. ‘He didn’t want a ticket.’
‘I’ll bet he didn’t want a ticket,’ said Fiona, not joining in, a certain grim dread settling over her. She felt ill. ‘It would have had the name of your street on it. And I’ll bet you any money that that’s his real car.’
‘What?’
‘Oh, come on, Mads. He’s a compulsive liar. He lied about his job. He lied about his past. Ten to one he borrowed that big car, or it’s some company car he has access to. How many times did you see it, anyway?’
Madison’s mouth opened, then snapped shut. ‘Shit,’ she said, after a moment.
Fiona fast-forwarded the feed again.
And now on screen there was a sudden presence, a person in a big coat swinging around the hedge, walking briskly to the front door, phone in hand. Fiona realised, with a start of relief, that this was Madison herself, returning home after a day at the offices of the archaeological unit in London, her furry trapper hat with its earflaps framing her face, her boots high-heeled and impractical.
She raised her head, offered a beaming grin and knowing wink to the hidden camera, and after moments fiddling with her key let herself in and vanished.
Behind her, a silver car was slowly rolling back in the direction it had come from, now little more than a shadow in the gathering dusk. At the wheel, Dominic Tate gazed after Madison, his eyes shadowed and filled with that terrible, inexplicable hunger.
There was no more talk of takeaways. The silver car parked in the space it had recently vacated, and now the timeline read 17:41:35. No matter how Fiona rewound, paused or tried to focus the screen, she could see nothing of the licence plate.
Night Falls, Still Missing Page 8
