32

It was nearly eleven o’clock in the morning when Alex put his key in the lock and opened the door to his flat. He had spent the whole of Sunday at Maggie’s as well as the night, although he had opted for the sofa, not wanting to risk further humiliation. Amazingly, she seemed to understand and had been happy just to have him there. He had been so tired that he had enjoyed a deep and dreamless sleep. At least for a while he had managed to banish the demons from the lake. Maggie had gone out early that morning to drive to an old rectory near Northampton, which was a potential new property for her books. He had been so deeply asleep he hadn’t heard her go, but she had left him breakfast and a note telling him to make himself at home. He wasn’t due at the restaurant until late afternoon, but rather than stay on the boat on his own with nothing to do, he had decided to go back to the flat for a change of clothes.

The hall lights were still on and the first thing he noticed was a sheet of paper on the floor, held down by an empty whisky bottle. BIG BROTHER’S WATCHING YOU ALEX!!! was scrawled across the page in thick, black marker. He picked it up, turned it over and found a message in Paddy’s familiar illegible writing:

Hi Alex, if you’re seeing this, you’ve probably come home from wherever you’ve been hiding yourself. Hope it was fun!!!! The fuzz have been all over the flat. They’re after you, mate! What have you been up to? I don’t know for certain, but I think they’re keeping a beady eye on this place so WATCH YOUR BACK!

P.S. Woman called Anna says please call and it’s urgent!!!!! Says you have the number.

He went into the kitchen. Taking care not to be seen, he peered out of the window. The road below was busy with cars and pedestrians. It was impossible to tell if any of them were plainclothes police, but if they were watching the flat, they were bound to have seen him come in. Why they were still after him, he had no idea, but he had no wish to be hauled in for more unpleasant questioning, accusations and threats if he could help it. He grabbed a plastic bag from under the sink, threw in his phone charger and a change of clothes and went into the bathroom, which overlooked the rear. He glanced quickly out of the window. He had a clear view over the patchwork of gardens to the backs of the houses on the next street, but as far as he could tell there was nobody out there. Maybe they weren’t watching, or maybe they were concentrating their efforts on the front. From the road, the house appeared to be hemmed in by other buildings, but appearances were deceptive. The drycleaners’ below extended out into most of the garden at ground level. Beyond was a wall, no more than six feet high, with a small alleyway on the other side that led along between the gardens and stopped at the back of a newsagent. During business hours, particularly in the summer, the newsagent’s door was kept permanently open. He had twice managed to climb out of Paddy’s flat this way, when Paddy in a rush had accidentally locked him inside. Luckily the owner of the newsagent didn’t seem to mind.

He went into the sitting room, turned on some music loud, so that if anyone came to the door, they would assume he was still there, then went back into the bathroom and climbed out of the window. He edged onto the boundary wall that separated the property from the house next door, pulled the window shut, then dropped down onto the flat roof of the drycleaners’. Within minutes he was walking through the newsagent and out into a nearby road. Cutting through the network of small streets, he rejoined Chamberlayne Road further along and jumped on a bus that had just pulled up at a stop. It was heading south towards Ladbroke Grove. He was the only person to get on and, as the doors closed behind him and the bus accelerated away, he scanned the road. As far as he could tell, nobody was following him.

He got off the bus halfway along Ladbroke Grove and went into a café just past the Westway. It was owned by an old Greek Cypriot called Harry and was a nice enough place to while away a few hours. He had often stopped there for something to eat when walking to work for the lunchtime shift and it was one of the few places he knew that still did a decent fried breakfast. Harry came over and he ordered coffee and a full English, with fried bread. He debated about charging up his phone, then decided against it. From the little he knew from the TV, the police might be able to track him if he switched it on.

‘Do you have a phone I could use?’ he asked, as Harry returned with a brimming cappuccino, thick with a coating of chocolate, just the way he liked it.

Harry gave him an easy smile. ‘Sure. The landline’s on the blink, but you can use my mobile.’ He took a small, green Nokia out of his pocket and handed it to Alex.

Alex found Anna’s card in his wallet and dialled her mobile. She picked up right away.

‘Anna Paget.’

‘It’s Alex. Alex Fleming. You asked me to call.’

‘Have you seen the papers?’

‘No. Why?’

‘You’d better take a look. The shit’s hit the proverbial fan and I really need to speak to you. Can we meet?’

‘What’s it about?’

‘Just look at the paper and you’ll see.’

‘This is to do with Joe, right?’

‘And Paul Khan, and now Danny Black.’

‘Danny?’

‘Didn’t you know? Alex, I’m so sorry. I thought you would know.’

‘No. Oh God, I . . .’ He put the phone down for a moment and stared into space. He felt numb. So Danny was dead too. Another one of the five. He had never been that close to Danny, unlike to Tim and Joe, but it was still a shock. Only he and Tim were left. Which one would be next? He felt sick. He heard the tinny sound of her voice coming from the phone’s microphone and put it back to his ear. ‘When did this happen?’ he whispered.

‘Yesterday. I’m really, really sorry, Alex. I didn’t mean to shock you like that. I’m really sorry. Please can we meet? It’s really urgent I speak to you. Where are you?’

He took a moment to answer. ‘In a café in Ladbroke Grove.’

‘Shall I come to you?’

‘I don’t know, I can’t think. What happened to Danny?’

‘He was found dead in St James’s Park. Again, I’m so sorry. The police as usual aren’t saying much, but I’ll tell you everything I know when I see you. Why don’t you come to my flat? That way we can talk in private.’ She gave him the address, which he memorised, having no pen or paper. ‘If you’re coming by tube, it’s about a ten-minute walk from either Earl’s Court or Fulham Broadway. How long do you think you’ll be?’

‘Half an hour or so. Maybe a bit more.’ He found it difficult to focus.

As he hung up, Harry came over with his breakfast. Still in a daze, Alex thanked him and handed him back his phone.

‘Are you OK?’ Harry asked, peering at him.

He shook his head. ‘I’ve just had some very bad news. Do you have a newspaper I could borrow?’

‘Of course. Hey, Sonia,’ he called out to the young woman who was busy making sandwiches behind the counter. ‘Pass me the paper, will you? It’s somewhere over there by the toaster.’ She slid a copy of the Daily Mail across to him, which he passed to Alex. The headline said it all:

BRUTAL LONDON MURDERS LINKED

He gazed down at the steaming plate of food in front of him, then pushed it away. He was no longer hungry.

Tartaglia sat at his desk staring fixedly at the computer screen. The surveillance team had called in to say that Alex Fleming had been back to his flat but had somehow managed to give them the slip. How it had happened, he wasn’t sure, but Fleming was acting very much like a guilty man and efforts were being redoubled to find him. He had checked with the team minding Tim Wade up in Oxford, but at least that end appeared to be secure and there was no sign of Fleming having tried to contact Wade. For the moment it was a waiting game, but he didn’t feel in a patient mood. He had spent the last few hours trying to catch up on paperwork, but he couldn’t concentrate. His head was buzzing. All he could think of was the headline in the morning paper and Anna’s name beneath it. What a fool he’d been. At one point he remembered their talking a little about the case in bed. She had asked him how it was going and if they were close to finding Joe’s killer. She had seemed interested to know about the psychological motivation of someone who could do such a thing and he had given her his view, couching it in very general terms that might have applied to a number of cases he had worked. At no point had he mentioned Paul Khan or Danny Black. Nor had he mentioned Ashleigh Grange or the lake. However distracted by her, however temporarily off guard, he couldn’t believe that any of it had come from him. But where had she got it from? In a way, it didn’t matter. He knew how it would look if anybody found out what had happened between them. He started to wonder if he could trust his memory. Although it was a bitter pill to swallow, he now knew why she had come to see him at his flat and why her behaviour had been so overt and like an idiot, he had fallen for it. In many ways, he was no better than Nick Minderedes, and the thought stung him.

He was on the point of calling her, then decided against it. He would get more out of her face to face. The files were still sitting on his desk and he made a note of her address. He changed out of his jacket and trousers into leathers and boots and went downstairs and out the back to where the Ducati was parked. He drove fast, weaving in and out of the heavy traffic along the Lower Richmond Road. Once over Putney Bridge, he cut through the side streets until he came to Edith Grove. It struck him again how close she lived to the Brompton Cemetery. Edith Grove was one way, with traffic flowing fast in the direction of the embankment, and there was nowhere to park. He drove the bike up over the pavement and into the front garden of the house, where he dismounted behind an ancient-looking Lancia. He took off his helmet and checked his watch. It had taken him just seven minutes.

According to the file, Anna lived on the first floor. Looking up, he saw that the window was open wide and he assumed she was in. He chained his helmet to the bike and went up the stairs to the front door. None of the bells were labelled and he pressed them all repeatedly until finally he heard her voice over the crackle of the intercom.

‘Who’s that?’

‘It’s Mark Tartaglia. We need to talk.’

There was a pause. ‘Now’s not a good time.’

‘I don’t care. May I come up?’

‘No. I’m on my way out to meet someone.’

‘I need to talk to you.’

There was another pause then she said: ‘OK. Wait there. I’ll be down in a minute.’

He went back to the front garden and stood by the bike, his mind still spinning. He lit a cigarette and looked up at the window. He saw her pull it shut, talking on the phone to someone, the handset cradled against her ear. A few minutes later the front door opened and she came down the steps towards him. She was wearing shorts and a tight-fitting black vest, the way she was dressed when he first met her.

‘I’m really sorry but I can’t talk now. I’ve got to go and see someone. Can’t you come back later?’ She gave him a pleasant enough smile but her sunglasses hid her eyes and he couldn’t read her expression.

‘I’ve seen the paper.’

‘It’s good, isn’t it?’

‘No, it’s not good. You used what I told you.’

‘Ah, that’s what this is all about. Don’t worry. It wasn’t earth-shattering. What you told me, I mean. You just helped confirm a few things.’

‘That’s not the point. What I said was between us. I didn’t expect to see it in print with your name under it.’

‘Mark, sweetheart, I knew most of it already. Hand on heart. What you said was just helpful background stuff.’

‘I’m glad you got something out of it, then.’

The smile disappeared and she put her hand on her hip. ‘Look, I didn’t come to see you to get information out of you. I’m not that cheap.’

‘Don’t give me that crap. There’s all sorts of information in that article you’re not supposed to know, let alone publish. What about all that stuff about Paul Khan and Danny Black . . . Where the hell did it come from?’

She tapped the side of her nose. ‘Ways and means. But don’t worry. You may have been a little pissed, but interesting though it all was, you didn’t give away anything vital. Anyway, none of it can be traced back to you and, as I said, I knew it all before.’

He shook his head disbelievingly. He still couldn’t work it out. Had he left her alone at any point? Apart from when she first came in and he had gone to get dressed, he didn’t think so. When he came back, she had been sitting in the same place, as though she hadn’t moved. Even if she had got up and snooped around, there hadn’t been much time, nor anything to see. There were no files or important documents or anything else of a sensitive nature lying around in the flat and his phone was password protected. Then it dawned on him. His notebook had been in his jacket pocket, hanging over the back of a chair where he had left it when he came home. She would have needed a while to decipher its contents. The only opportunity had been in the morning, when she got up, leaving him in bed. He’d been heavily asleep, even for him. Apart from vaguely glimpsing her as she left the bedroom, he hadn’t been aware of anything. He certainly had no recollection of her leaving the flat. Then another thought struck him. Had she drugged him? It would explain the blinding hangover the next morning and his unusually befuddled state of mind. The thought shocked him. It was too late to go for a blood test and even if he knew for certain, it would do no good. He could hardly arrest her and have to admit to Steele and the rest what had happened.

He stared into the black mirrors of her glasses. ‘You put something in my wine, didn’t you?’

‘That’s ridiculous.’

‘Is it? Did you go through my notebook while I was asleep? Jesus Christ, I can’t believe I was so stupid.’

‘Is it your ego you’re worried about, or your job?’

He shook his head in disgust. ‘I should never have let you in the door.’

She sighed. ‘Stop being so paranoid, will you? I came over to see you because I wanted to. It seemed like a good idea at the time. End of story. It had nothing to do with your job or mine.’ She held up her hand before he could get a word in. ‘And no, I didn’t snoop around your flat and no, I certainly didn’t look in your notebook. Whatever we did and said is between the two of us.’

Instinctively, he knew she was lying. ‘That’s not good enough and you know it. What we both did was wrong. The only difference is that my job’s on the line if anyone finds out.’

‘Trust me, they won’t. Now, I’ve really got to get a move on. I’ll catch up with you later.’

The address given for Danielle Henderson in the missing person report was half way down York Road, in the Montpelier area of Bristol. Like many of the older parts of the city, the street was narrow and on a hill, with a mixture of modest, multi-coloured Georgian terraced houses, Victorian buildings and modern council housing. The house was on three floors, the front painted a faded, damp-stained peach, with a weatherbeaten eighteenth century porch and sash windows. Cars were tightly parked along both sides of the street and there were no gaps anywhere. Leaving Chang to find a space in one of the neighbouring streets, Donovan got out and rang the bell. It was answered moments later by a small, bird-like woman with greasy, dyed blonde hair scraped loosely back in a short ponytail.

‘Yes?’ She eyed Donovan suspiciously, a lit cigarette clamped between bony fingers. At first glance, she looked far too old to be Danielle’s mother, with a deeply lined face and the papery grey skin of a heavy smoker.

Donovan held up her ID. ‘I’m from the Metropolitan Police. I’m trying to locate Susan Henderson.’

‘What do you want with her?’

‘It’s to do with her daughter, Danielle.’

Her watery eyes widened. ‘It’s Danni. We called her Danni. So you’ve found her, then?’

‘Are you Susan?’

‘No. I’m Reenie. I’m Susan’s mother. Susan passed away two years ago.’ She spoke with a throaty, West Country accent. ‘Danni’s dead, isn’t she?’ Her expression was resigned, as if bad news was something she was accustomed to.

‘I’m afraid so. May I come in?’

‘I knew all along Danni hadn’t run off, like they said,’ she muttered, moving aside to let Donovan pass. She closed the front door and shuffled away along the narrow corridor. The house was airless and smelled strongly of stale cigarette smoke, as though nobody had opened a window in years. Reenie was wearing fluffy pink slippers in the shape of Garfield and looked painfully thin under her loose-fitting tracksuit bottoms and T-shirt. Donovan followed her into a small kitchen at the back, which looked out onto a sloping strip of overgrown garden. The room was painted a pastel shade of blue, with a border of flying seagulls pasted around the top. In a corner by the sink was a cage. Inside, a sparrow sat puffed up on a perch asleep.

Reenie stubbed out the butt of her cigarette in a saucer on the counter and turned to Donovan. ‘Have a seat.’ She gestured vaguely towards a couple of chairs and a small, yellow Formica table that was pushed up against the wall. ‘Do you want a cup of tea?’

Donovan pulled up a chair and sat down. ‘Thanks. If you’re having one.’

‘Yes. I need one, after what you just told me.’ Reenie switched on the kettle and took down a couple of mugs from a shelf, which she wiped methodically with a tea towel.

‘Sugar?’ she asked, as the kettle pinged.

‘One, please.’

‘And milk?’

‘Just a drop.’

As Reenie prepared the tea, the sparrow started to make harsh chirruping sounds from the cage. Donovan turned round to look at him. It was almost as though he was shouting for attention and he was standing up on his perch, looking straight at her, his head cocked to one side, black eyes glittering in the light from the window.

‘Don’t mind Steve,’ Reenie said, coming over to the table with the tea. ‘He’s just a nosy parker. Won’t mind his own business and he wants to know who you are. It’s not often we get company.’ She sat down opposite Donovan and passed her a mug. It looked well-used, the side decorated with one of the signs of the Zodiac printed in dull gold. Reenie’s had a picture of Sagittarius, Donovan noticed, while hers was Pisces. She wondered if it had belonged to Susan or Danielle. The tea looked good and strong, but it was too hot to drink and she put it down on the table to cool.

‘You’re sure it’s Danni?’ Reenie asked, taking a sip of hers.

‘As far as we can be, at this stage. We’ll need to take a DNA swab from you to see if there’s a match. If you had the name of her dentist that would also help. In the meantime, I wonder if you recognise these?’

She took the colour photocopies of the earrings out of her bag and handed them to Reenie, who stared at the images for a moment, then closed her eyes. ‘Those are my earrings. At least, they belonged to my mother. She gave them to me just before she died. I thought I’d lost them. Trust Danni to have taken them.’

‘I’m sorry.’

Reenie shook her head. ‘Where did you say you found her?’

‘Her remains were in a lake in between Bristol and Bath. From what we know, she went to a party given by some students who were living near the lake and died there. This would have been in June, or possibly early July, 1991. I’m afraid we’re treating her death as murder.’

Reenie met her gaze with burning eyes. ‘Murder?’ She sank back against her chair. ‘Dear Lord. I suppose it had to be, didn’t it? I mean, if she’d had an accident or something, she’d have turned up sooner. What happened?’

‘It looks as though she was strangled.’

She swallowed hard. ‘Sweet Jesus! Do you know who did it?’

‘We have a suspect, but that’s all I can say for the moment. I need to ask you some questions, if you don’t mind.’

Reenie nodded and hunched over her tea, her hand clamped tightly around the mug. Donovan saw tears in her eyes. After a moment, she got up, grabbed a tissue from a box by the sink and blew her nose loudly. She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, then, fumbling, helped herself to a Silk Cut from a packet on the counter. Her fingers were trembling as she lit up. She took a long, deep pull as though struggling for air, then leaned back against the cupboards. ‘I’ve been hanging on waiting for this day for so long. I can’t tell you what it’s been like. I couldn’t say nothing to Susan, but I knew Danni was dead. I just wish my Susan was still here. She’d have given anything just to know what happened.’

‘You said Susan died.’

She nodded. ‘She was only fifty. It was cancer, they said, but I know it was Danni’s going missing. It cracked her up and she went to pieces after that. She wouldn’t get out of bed, wouldn’t go to work, wouldn’t see her friends or anyone, really. The pills the doctor gave her only made it worse. Right through it all, she was always so sure Danni was still alive. She tried everything she could to find her and she spent all her savings on some psychic who said he’d help her find Danni. But he was just a charlatan. Even I could see that, but she was so desperate I said nothing. You can’t imagine what it’s like, losing your child, not knowing all this time what’d happened to her. No parent should have to outlive a child, let alone a grandchild. I hope you find whoever did this.’

‘We will,’ Donovan said with as much conviction as she could muster.

‘I’ve never thought the death penalty was the answer, but whoever did this deserves to be strung up. They’ve ruined three lives.’

‘I’m very sorry,’ Donovan said.

Reenie gave a wheezy sigh. ‘Thank you. I can see you mean it, which is more than I can say for the police what come here when Danni disappeared. They was worse than useless.’

‘We’ll need to contact Danni’s father,’ Donovan said. ‘Do you have an address for him?’

‘Colin? I haven’t a clue where the sod is. There’s no love lost between him and me, I can tell you.’

‘We’ll still need to contact him.’

‘How I hate that man. They were childhood sweethearts, him and Susan. When he ran off with that little teenage whore while he was out in Northern Ireland, it broke Susan’s heart, it did.’

‘He was in the army?’

‘That’s right. Upped and left Susan and Danni high and dry, without a penny or a roof over their heads. That’s why they had to come live with me. When he tried to wheedle his way back in, I saw him off. I told him exactly where he could go. They were both so soft, they’d have had him back at the drop of a hat, but I was having none of it. I gave him what I had in my savings account and told him to bugger off. He was one of those . . . what do they call ’em . . . ?’ She waved her frail hand vaguely in the air. ‘Serial adulterer. Isn’t that it? Never could resist a short skirt and a pretty face, he couldn’t, and the younger the better. He’d only’ve broken Susan’s heart all over again.’

‘What about Danni? Was he close to her?’

She nodded. ‘He doted on Danni, I’ll say that for him. She could do no wrong in his eyes. He used to call her his little princess and he’d heap presents on her whenever he came home. It was difficult for Susan to see how close they was. But it didn’t stop him messing around, though, did it? When Danni went missing, my first thought was she’d run off to him. It’s what the police thought too. But then they told me he’d gone straight back to Northern Ireland after the Gulf War ended, so I knew for sure something must’ve happened to her. However silly she was, she’d never run off on her own and leave us with no word. At heart, she was a good, sweet girl, however they tried to paint her. When he come home and found out about her being missing, he was round here straight away, threatening to kill us both like we’d had something to do with it. It was truly frightening.’

‘Do you know where he is now?’

Reenie stubbed out her cigarette. ‘Abroad. Last I heard, he was out in the Middle East somewhere, working for some security company. Your best bet’s to try the army. They should know how to find him.’

‘Which regiment was he in?’

‘The Light Infantry, although he left a while ago. Maybe they’ll have an address or something on file.’

‘Do you have a photograph of him, by any chance?’

‘There’s one up in Danni’s room. He sent it to her just before she went missing. I remember the fuss I had trying to get a frame she liked. Nothing was good enough. I’d have chucked it long ago but Susan wouldn’t let me. She wanted it all kept just the way Danni left it. Before she died, she made me promise again not to touch it, in case Danni’d come home. I told her Danni’d be a woman by now and she wouldn’t want it like that no more, but she wouldn’t hear a word of it. Danni was still her little girl. I go up there sometimes to dust and hoover. Maybe now Danni’s dead, I’ll have a clearout. Perhaps Susan wouldn’t mind now.’

‘Would it be ok if I took a look?’

‘Help yourself,’ she said, lighting another Silk Cut. ‘It’s the room on the top floor. Why don’t you go ahead while I tidy up here, then I’ll follow you.’