“Hurt her and Abbie,” Esme repeated. “Why is Sonia dead but not Abbie?”
I took a deep breath, debating how much to share, but I’d dealt with the grieving loved ones enough times to know what sort were before me. They wanted to know; I’d tell them.
“The drug that was injected into Abbie was made; the compound took some time to understand. We think that whoever made it, must have gotten the recipe wrong. This time, they fixed their errors.”
Esme let out an angry breath. “Well, good for them,” she snapped.
“Their work,” Mr Petrilli said before his wife started blowing smoke. “Always met some difficulties. From other people.”
“Protestors?” I asked.
He nodded, pushing some hair back from where it had fallen in his face. “It’s one of the reasons Sonia likes living at home still,” he explained. “I think she felt safer here. One or two of those treats, they scared her. They really scared her.”
“Were these recent threats?” I asked, as kindly as I could.
“No. That one was a while ago now. A few years back. She and Abbie had only just started to work together. It was a study on… What was it on, darling?” he asked his wife.
“They were looking for a botanical drug to help with immune diseases,” she replied automatically, blowing her nose loudly. “It wasn’t a very successful study.”
“People weren’t happy about it,” Mr Petrilli went on. “But Sonia didn’t tell us much about it. Even when the threat came, she kept it quiet. She was like that, never wanted us to know what she was working on until it was finished,” he added with a smile.
I looked at Mills, who met my eyes and gave a small nod. We were done here, there was little these people could give us to help in their grief, and they needed to be alone with it. I fished a business card from my pocket and placed it on the table between us.
“Please don’t hesitate to get in touch if you can think of anything that would be beneficial for us to know in this investigation,” I told them. “We’ll be in touch as soon as we have more information for you.”
Mr Petrilli stood up, “Can I show you to the door?”
“We can find our way,” I reassured him, and he sank back down beside his wife. “Thank you for your time.”
“And again,” Mills added, “we are so sorry for your loss.”
Mr Petrilli gave us a somewhat grateful nod, and then we left them to it, making our way through the large, warm and orange kitchen to the front door. The rain was beginning to slow down, but Mills still passed me the keys as we walked towards the car, apparently having had his fill of rain and mud and wheels for one day. I took them without complaint, hoping that the drive would stop my brain from wandering off too far and slid into the car.
“Dr Quaid gave me Sonia’s work things,” he remembered suddenly. “In the boot,” he jerked a thumb over his shoulder.
“A laptop?”
“Yep. And the rest of her stuff should all be processed by now.”
I nodded, pulling away from the house and heading back onto the roads. “Sonia was frightened by those protestors,” I murmured. “Maybe we should have another chat with Lin Shui.”
Fourteen
Thatcher
“Well, boys,” Sharp stood in front of us, leaning her back against her desk, hands clasped together. “You’ve officially got a homicide to investigate. What’s the story so far?”
“Sonia Petrilli has a puncture wound in her neck,” I answered. “Similar to that found on Abbie Whelan. We think it’s likely that the killer perfected their recipe and managed to kill Sonia with it.”
“Any leads?” She asked, looking dubious.
“Sonia was our lead,” I told her. “We were heading out to the gardens to question her again about Abbie. She was our lead suspect, and now…” I trailed off with a shrug.
“We think perhaps, it’s not personal though,” Mills took over. “When it was just Abbie, we suspected some kind of personal vendetta, but it’s more likely that this is bigger than that. Both research partners taken down, someone’s got something against them or their work.”
Sharp nodded slowly. “The protestors?”
“According to Sonia’s father,” I said. “She was scared of some threats they received early on in their career, from one of their first studies together. Something to do with working on traditional medicine for immune diseases. We’re planning on looking into what groups or individuals might have wanted to target them for their work back then and see if there’s any overlap now.”
“What about Abbie?” She asked. “Any suspicion that our killer would try her again?”
“She’s still in the coma, so she’s not a trouble to them right now, but we’ve let the hospital security know, and we’ll tighten the rotation of officers outside her room.”
“Good,” Sharp replied. “And anything from Lena yet?”
“Nothing. But she’s calling in Dr Olsen, the toxicologist, to take a look at some blood samples and see if there’s any correlation. She also told me that forensics got back on those blood samples. Most are a match for Abbie, but there’s one that’s different.”
Sharp breathed in and out piercingly. “Well, that’s something. At least we can get a DNA match when you bring someone in. Means that Abbie must have fought back against her attacker,” she murmured, walking around to sit at her desk.
“We think so. It might explain how she ended up with some of those bruises as well.”
“Killer must have got the recipe well off,” she added. “This threat, this would be older than the recent ones? From the young protesters you spoke to?”
“Lin Shui would have been in school still around that time, but we’ll speak to her, see if she knows anything or anyone that might be of help.”
“Speak to Paige,” Sharp instructed us. “If this threat scared Abbie too, she might have mentioned it. Sisters tend to know about those of sorts of things,” she added, “especially ones as close as they are.”
I nodded. “We’d need to speak to her about the new security around Abbie anyway, so we’ll start there. Maybe whatever she tells us can help Lin fill in the gaps.”
“Right, you are then. Time to speed things up, though, chaps. You’ve more at your disposal, but HQ’s been in my ear. Apparently, the press is starting to gnaw on this one, and a journalist from the Post was outside earlier.”
I froze. “A journalist from the Post?” Sharp looked up,
“Not her,” she stated very clearly. “Go on, get on with you.”
Mills took my arm and tugged me from her office, fishing his phone from his pocket. I shook him off when we were away from her door.
“I’m fine. It’s good.”
“It’s good?” Mills repeated. “One mention about a journalist from the Post, and you look like you’ve had a bucket of cold water thrown in your face.”
I felt like I needed a bucket of cold water in the face. Of course, it wasn’t Jeannie. She hadn’t been in the city for some time now, and she certainly wouldn’t have stood outside, waiting quietly for someone to give her a scoop. She’d have been up here, rattling on the door to our office like Hamlet’s ghostly father.
I shook my head, casting away the images of bright red curls and beaming green eyes as Mills spoke to whoever he had called.
“Paige? It’s Mills here. No, everything’s fine. We wondered if we might have a little chat with you.” He was quiet for a moment, nodding along. “The hospital? Perfect. We’ll see you in ten.”
He hung up, putting his phone away. “She took Grace to see Abbie, so we can meet her at the hospital.”
“That’s convenient,” I remarked, following him down the stairs.
The rain still fell, though it wasn’t quite as heavy, but I was glad to have my big coat back on as we clambered into the car yet again and whirled through the city, the end of the day starting to draw people from offices and shops, hurrying to buses and cars with umbrellas propped between their sho
ulders and chins or holding bags above their heads.
The hospital was fairly quiet, so we found a place to park and made our way to the reception, where we were kindly directed up a floor and along the hallways to Abbie’s room. I glanced in the window, spotting Grace perched on a chair by Abbie’s head, her own small face pressed against her shoulder. Paige sat on a chair opposite, and when I knocked lightly on the door, her head whirled around, and she nodded and waved us in with a smile. As we entered, closing the door, I looked her over with some concern. She’d been crying, that much was evident, and she was holding Abbie’s limp hand in her own like a life raft. She looked young, very young, too young in fact to have everything that she’d had thrown at her on her shoulders.
“Hello again,” she said with a twinge of humour. “We must stop meeting like this.”
“Hello, Paige. I pulled a chair over to sit beside her as Mills stood watch at the door. I didn’t speak to Grace, didn’t pull her away from where she was nestled into her mother’s side. “I’ve got some news,” I told her in a quiet voice so that Grace couldn’t hear, my head angled low to hers. She looked up at me with wide eyes and nodded.
“Sonia Petrilli was found dead a few hours ago,” I murmured, “we believe from the same substance used to harm Abbie.”
Paige gasped and blinked rapidly, wiping at fresh tears and sniffing loudly. “Christ. Do you think it was the same person?”
“That’s what we believe, yes. Sonia’s father mentioned a threat that the two of them would have got early on in their career together. One that frightened Sonia. I was wondering if Abbie ever made mention of it. It would have been eight or so years ago. A study to do with immune diseases.”
Paige’s eyes brightened, and she nodded. “Immune, yes. I remember. It was her first proper study, a big research project she was excited about.” I sat back, letting her think back and recall those past years.
“I mean, I was what, seventeen at the time? So, I don’t remember much. She told me a bit about it, or more about the plants themselves than the actual study. And then one day, she comes home, and she doesn’t look right. Her face is all sad, her eyes are a million miles away, and she shuts herself in her room and won’t talk to me. I just figured that something had gone wrong at work. But they shut the study down not long after.”
“Was there ever any mention of a threat?”
Paige shook her head. “Not that she ever told me. But she acted a bit weird for a few weeks until the study got shut down and then even after that for a while. Double-checking the door was locked, snapping at me if I left it open. She didn’t normally do that,” Paige added. “She was on edge, but it got better, and I sort of forgot about it.”
“It was good that you noticed,” I remarked.
“She’s my sister,” she answered, stroking Abbie’s hand. “I’ll always notice.”
I smiled at the two of them as Paige reached up and pushed some of Abbie’s hair back from her face, the roots starting to show. She frowned then and looked back at me.
“What happened with Luke? What did he say about her?”
“He said she was a narcissist,” I answered, and she snorted a laugh. “And that she was controlling and took all the credit for her and Sonia’s work.”
Paige sniggered again and rolled her eyes. “Abbie’s a bit of a perfectionist,” she said. “She likes things done a certain way, but she’s not a narcissist. She’s completely selfless. Plus,” she added with a keen passion that made me imagine she’d had this conversation before. “They’re botanical studies. They literally study the plants. Of course, Abbie’s the lead researcher. There’d be no study without her. Sonia knew that as well as anyone. That’s why this was one different,” she went on. “Why Abbie wanted to make sure that the plants were sorted, so that Sonia could carry on without her when she was on holiday. It was her project, not Abbie’s.”
Paige’s depiction of her sister slotted perfectly into place in my mind, and I felt a little weight leave my shoulders. I looked past her to Abbie, looking at her properly since we first found her. The bruises had faded, but her skin was gaunt, and she looked thin.
“Is Abbie much of a fighter?” I asked. “If she’d known that someone was there to attack her, would she have known what to do?”
“She made us both go to some self-defence classes after Gracie was born,” Paige informed me with a roll of the eyes. “Said we needed to know the basics, at least. So, yeah, probably. She’d have fought back a little. Why?”
“We found some blood in the greenhouse that doesn’t match hers. Could be our attacker.”
Paige sucked in a breath, her eyes wide, and then turned to the bed when Grace lifted her head and poked Abbie on the shoulder.
“Mummy’s sleeping,” she told us in a loud whisper.
“That’s right, poppet,” Paige said, hastily wiping her nose on her sleeve. “What do you think she’s dreaming about?”
Grace thought about it for a while, her nose scrunched up. “Porridge,” she said at last.
Behind me, Mills laughed, and Paige shook her head fondly.
“We read Goldilocks last night,” she explained. “Someone’s been talking about porridge all day. That’s a good dream,” she said to Grace. “We’ll make her some when she wakes up, yeah?”
Grace nodded and looked down at her mother again with a confused face that made my chest twinge.
“We’ll leave you to it,” I told Paige quietly. “But I also wanted to let you know that we’ll be increasing the security for her room. You might see a few more officers here and there when you come and visit.”
She looked taken aback, but she nodded understandingly and bent her head to kiss Abbie’s hand. “We should be getting on. Come on, toerag,” she called to Grace. “Let’s let mummy sleep. You and I are going to go home now.”
Grace slipped down from her chair and walked around the bed as Paige stood up. As she helped her put her coat on, I rose from my chair and joined Mills.
“Say sleep well, mummy,” Paige said, taking Grace’s hand. Grace turned around and blew a kiss to Abbie. Paige wiped her face again and took a deep breath, girding herself up.
“Right then. Home, dinner, bath and we can watch some telly before bed. Thanks for coming,” she said to the two of us, “and good luck with it all.”
“Thank you, Paige. You’re doing fantastic,” I added in a lowered voice. Her face brightened, and she nodded, leading Grace down the hall.
Mills and I left Abbie’s room then, and the officer who we’d let step away whilst we were in there drifted back into place with a foam cup of coffee in his hands.
“Any good?” I asked him with a nod.
“Tastes a bit like burnt toast, but it’s better than nowt,” he said.
“Call us if anything’s amiss,” I ordered, and he nodded, stepping into place with his back to the door as we made our way through the confusing map of hallways, back down to the reception and out into the car park. The sun was starting to set, the sky streaked with pink, and I sighed deeply, the air cooled by the rain that had at last stopped.
“Dinner, bath, telly, and bed sounds pretty decent to me,” I remarked.
“It does. I don’t have a bath in my flat, though,” Mills replied despondently. “Maybe I’ll if Susanne will let me stew in hers for a bit.”
“Can’t hurt to ask,” I told him as we climbed back into the car. “We’ll get in touch with Lin Shui tomorrow, see if she can help point us in any more of a solid direction about this threat.”
“Might be worth taking a look into the study?” Mills suggested as he reversed from the parking spot.
“I don’t remember seeing it with her other ones in the garage,” I answered.
“If it’s that old, maybe she got rid of it,” he answered. “Especially if they shut it down.”
I nodded in agreement. “Hopefully, she or Sonia have a record on one of their laptops, else we might be asking Dr Quaid to take a deep dive into their archiv
es, and I don’t really fancy that, to tell you the truth.”
Mills chuckled. “Can’t say I blame you, sir.”
We were close to my home on this side of the city, so he dropped me at the kerb with a promise to swing by for me in the morning, and I happily let myself into the house, the weight of today threatening to buckle my knees as I pushed the door shut and leant against it, my eyes shut. I kicked my shoes off and padded into the kitchen, fishing for something easy to cook in the fridge, my eyes glancing on the calendar on the wall beside it. Nearly August. There was still time at least to get one mother and child relationship repaired. I wouldn’t want Grace growing up with a scowl like mine.
No use dwelling, though, and I found myself working through the motions that Paige had set out for Grace. Dinner, bath, telly, some old film from the seventies that was questionable, but entertaining, and after a pleasant chat to Liene on the phone that made the whole day seem instantly more bearable, I collapsed into bed, yanking the duvet up over my head, remembered that Mills had left his out in the rain, and fell asleep with a grin on my face.
Fifteen
Thatcher
I was surprisingly alert when Mills picked me up the next morning. The weary grogginess of the day before from dealing with Luke Campbell to finding Sonia’s body had taken a lot out of me. More than I realised, and after a decent night’s sleep, I woke up recharged and ready to go. I also woke up earlier than I really needed to, so in what felt like the first time in months, I forced myself out on a jog around the still cool morning, around the nearest park and back up the road. After a shower and a cooked breakfast, I found two travel cups and filled them both with coffee, just as Mills pulled up outside the house. I was out the door before he could climb out and ring the bell, sliding into the passenger seat and passing him the coffee, which he took with no small amount of surprise.
“Morning,” I greeted him, clicking my seatbelt into place.
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