Fell Purpose

She was no more than averagely pretty, Slider thought, so perhaps her extreme make-up was her way of giving herself distinction; but under it he saw no fear or consciousness in her expression. She genuinely didn’t know – and was probably not interested to know, either, which was that generation’s least attractive feature.

‘When did you see her last?’ he asked.

‘See her last? Oh fuck, she’s not run away, has she?’

‘Just answer the question, please.’

‘Yeah, and can the language, babe,’ Hart added for him.

She looked wary now. ‘Well, she came over for a couple of days. Her mum and dad knew about it. She stayed Sunday night and last night and went home this morning.’

Slider shook his head. ‘Don’t you know it’s a very serious matter to lie to the police?’

‘I’m not lying,’ she said, her eyes flitting from Slider to Hart and back.

‘We know you are, love,’ Hart said, ‘so don’t make it worse for yourself. We know Zellah wasn’t here this morning. She was found dead yesterday.’

‘Dead?’ Sophy received the word with absolute blankness. ‘You’re joking.’

Hart winced on Slider’s behalf. ‘It’s nuffing to joke about, is it, girl? She was murdered. Somebody strangled her. Got it? Now are you going to sit down and answer our questions and try and help your mate, or d’you wanna get nicked for obstruction? It’s up to you.’

‘She can’t be dead,’ Sophy said, but she sat down on the bed, her demeanour compliant now. ‘She’s younger than me.’

A glance at Slider told Hart he wanted her to ask the questions, so she sat on the chair, pushing the clothes to one side, while he remained standing by the door. The poodle and whippet took the excuse to jump up on the bed, but the two bigger dogs remained on faithful-hound duty at Slider’s feet.

‘Never mind that,’ Hart said. ‘Just tell us about Zellah’s visit. We know what her mum and dad thought was happening, but what did you really plan on doing?’

‘It’s not as if it was anything bad,’ Sophy said in wounded tones. ‘We just wanted to go to the Notting Hill Carnival yesterday, but Zellah’s dad won’t let her do anything. Every time she wants to do something it’s “no, you’re too young”. I mean, she’s nearly seventeen! But he says not the Carnival, it’s too dangerous.’ She exaggerated ludicrously. ‘“You might meet nasty, rough people, you can’t go.” So we made this thing up about the Southbank Fair.’

‘You weren’t actually going to the Southbank, then?’

She rolled her eyes. ‘Duh! Of course we weren’t. Lame or what? Mimes and jugglers and roundabouts? What am I, nine? No, that was just the cover, to get him to let her come over. About the only time she gets off the leash is when she comes to see me, or stays late at school, like for a club or an extra class or something, or Saturdays when we have a ballet class and we can go somewhere afterwards. Or sometimes she says there’s a class when there isn’t, and I cover for her. I mean, it’s pathetic that she has to pretend like that, but what can you do, with dinosaurs like them?’

‘So you were actually going to the Notting Hill Carnival?’

‘Oh yeah, we were going all day, then in the evening, if we didn’t get invited to a party or anything, we were going clubbing. That’s why she was staying last night as well, so we could stay out late. Her dad would’ve wanted her home by ten.’

‘Who was going – just you and Zellah?’

‘And Chloe. Chloe Paulson. She’s at school with us. She came over Sunday night and we were just going to hang out here.’ She blushed at a memory.

‘What?’ Hart said.

Sophy looked defiant. ‘Chloe had this book of cocktails she found in a drawer at home, and we were going to work our way through them. My dad’s got all the ingredients in the drinks cupboard.’

‘What did your sister have to say about that?’

‘Abi wasn’t here. She was staying with her boyfriend. Anyway, she’s cool, as long I don’t bug her.’

‘And your parents are away?’

‘They’re skiing in the Andes. Abi’s got a contact address for them, but we’re not supposed to bother them unless it’s an emergency.’

‘Any other brothers and sisters?’

‘Hector and Theo are at camp in Colorado. They’re younger than me. And Oscar’s hiking in Chamonix with his girlfriend. He’s at Durham, so he’s hardly ever here anyway.’

She sounded sulky, and Hart said sympathetically, ‘So everyone gets away except you?’

‘Yeah, I get left to look after the dogs!’ She rolled her eyes in a martyred way, but quickly lost the attitude and said, ‘I don’t care, though. I like being on my own. I could have gone to Chile but I hate skiing. It’s more fun here. And I thought it’d be nice for Zellah to have a bit of fun too. Only she had other ideas,’ she added morosely. ‘As it happens.’

‘What d’you mean?’

‘Well, it turns out she was never planning on going to the Carnival anyway. She came over Sunday about six, the way we arranged. Chloe was already here. We’d been out in the afternoon – Zellah’s dad wouldn’t let her come earlier, said Sunday was a family day or some such shit.’ Another eye roll. ‘Anyway, she turns up, and Chloe says, “OK, girl, let’s get wrecked,” and then Zellah calmly tells us she’s got a date.’

‘A date? With a boy?’

‘Of course with a boy! But she wouldn’t tell us who. We kept asking but she just shrugged and said nobody we knew.’

‘Was it Mike Carmichael, do you think?’

The question didn’t surprise her, but she shook her head. ‘Why wouldn’t she have told us if it was him? But she wasn’t still seeing him. She did for a bit, after her dad told her not to – well, you’ve got to, haven’t you? – but I razzed her about him because he was such a dork and she dropped him’

‘Was he a dork? I heard he was cool.’

‘Per-leese! He comes from a council estate. He’s got a motorbike. He’s, like, some old greaseball rocker. I wouldn’t go out with anyone that doesn’t have his own car,’ she added proudly.

‘So she didn’t give you any hint about who it was?’

‘No, like I said, she was being all mysterious and wouldn’t-you-like-to-know, as if it was someone really good.’

‘Was she excited?’

She frowned. ‘I wouldn’t say excited, exactly. More sort of tense. Well, if it was the first date she would be nervous. Anyway, I said, “you can’t go dressed like that.” All her clothes were terrible, like a kid’s clothes, and she had hardly any make-up. Her dad wouldn’t allow it. She said it didn’t matter, but I said she couldn’t go on a date looking like that, not from my house. So we had a bit of fun, dressing her and making her up with our stuff, and Chloe made a few cocktails while we were doing it, so it was all right, we still had a good time. Then she went off.’

‘This date didn’t call for her?’

‘We’d have seen him if he did, wouldn’t we?’ she said, with a sigh at Hart’s stupidity. ‘She said he was meeting her outside the Black Lion, in the car park.’

‘And you were expecting her back that night, were you?’

‘Yeah. She was still coming to the Carnival with us. She said she might be late back, so I gave her a spare key, in case we were asleep.’

‘And you were in the whole evening?’

‘Yeah. We did think about going to the pub, but in the end we just stayed in, talking, having a laugh, a few drinks. Just hanging out.’

‘What time did you go to bed?’

‘I dunno. About one o’clock, I suppose. Zellah wasn’t back, and when we got up she still wasn’t. Chloe said, “She’s doing all right for herself.” We just thought she was staying over with him.’

‘Did she phone you at any point?’

‘No.’