back on all of this, just because they had a row.’
Nick grunted noncommittally. ‘It’s interesting,’ he said. ‘I want to see what Paco and the famous Ant and Cat have to say.’
They found the bar without difficulty. Better yet, the three people they wanted to speak to were all there. It was a typical village bar; simple decor, basic menu and a friendly ambience. But as soon as they mentioned Leanne’s name, the temperature dropped. ‘Walked out on us without a word,’ bleached-blond Ant said, curling his lip in contempt. He rolled his shoulders, deliberately displaying his weight-room muscles. ‘She was Cat’s best mate but she just used you, pet. As soon as she was back with her celebrity pals, we were history.’ Paco nodded, polishing a wine glass with vigour.
Cat, statuesque with an Amy Winehouse mane of raven hair that owed everything to the skills of her hairdresser, nodded sagely. ‘Dumped Paco there like he had the pox. Not so much as a postcard or a text. I lost count of the number of times I texted her and got nothing back.’ Ant patted her hand.
‘And voicemail,’ Paco chipped in. ‘She ignore my voicemail twenty time or more. She love that life in London, I know this. But I think she will come back because we have something good.’ He finished polishing the glass and replaced it on the shelf. ‘I love her. But is no point.’
‘That’s right, Paco. No point. How could we compete with the likes of Scarlett?’ Cat pouted, petulant as an adolescent.
‘After Scarlett died, did you not expect her to come home?’
‘Course we did,’ Ant said, flexing his forearms. ‘But she must have hooked up with some bloke with more money than sense.’
‘She always had an eye for the main chance.’
It was, thought Stephanie, an odd judgement. Living in a small Spanish hill town and painting women’s nails for a living didn’t seem to her to demonstrate an eye for the main chance. What it had always said to her was that Leanne was a woman who knew her limitations and was happy to work within them. If she’d been a gold-digger or someone who was only out for what she could get, she’d had her chances when she’d been living at the hacienda. She’d had power over Scarlett and Joshu and she’d never chosen to wield it. But Ant and Cat had constructed their story as deliberately as Stephanie built the biographies of her clients and this was the version of Leanne that would be handed down now and for ever.
A second beer in the bar produced nothing else of significance. It was clear to Stephanie that Leanne had made a life here then promptly burned her bridges behind her. But Nick saw a different set of possibilities.
They weren’t the sort of possibilities that would fill anyone’s heart with joy.
3
They walked back to the car in silence, both lost in their own thoughts. Nick didn’t start the engine immediately. Instead, he said, ‘You have Leanne’s phone number, don’t you?’
‘Yes.’ Stephanie dug out her phone and thumbed through her contacts. ‘There it is. A Spanish mobile.’
‘I’d like you to send her a text.’
‘Saying what?’
‘Saying you’re planning to bring Jimmy out to Spain for a holiday soon and you’d love to get together. And then we’ll sit back and see what happens.’
Stephanie gave him an odd look. ‘What do you think will happen? Jimmy being abducted has been in all the British papers. They do get them out here, you know. And it’s been all over the Internet. If she wanted to get in touch with me, she would have done it by now.’
‘Maybe. But I think you’ll get an enthusiastic text back saying something like, “What a great idea, when are you coming?” And when you give her dates, oh bugger, that’ll be exactly the week she’s booked to go to Thailand with friends.’
She wasn’t stupid. She understood what he was saying. The realisation sat like a lump in her chest. This was the last thing she’d expected to discover on this trip. ‘You think someone else has her phone. You think she’s dead.’
He reached for her hand. ‘I’m sorry. I can’t see any other explanation. We know she left to spend time with Scarlett before she died. Then they had a row and she walked out. She’d built a life here. This was the obvious place for her to come back to. But she didn’t. She walked out of a house in Essex and she was never seen again.’
‘But Simon spoke to her when Scarlett died. To ask her to come to the funeral.’
‘Did he? Did he actually speak to her? Or did he text her? We know her phone was live for some time after she disappeared. Paco left voicemail messages. If someone killed her, it would make sense to keep the phone live, to confuse the issue of where Leanne was. It would be easy enough to impersonate her in a text.’ Nick’s voice was gentle, but there was no sugar-coating his words.
Unbidden, the tears started, fat and heavy on her cheeks. Stephanie began to shake, her teeth chattering. Nick pulled her close, waiting out the storm. When the first shock passed, her eyes and nose were swollen and sore. ‘I can’t believe it,’ she said. She put her hand on his chest and looked up into his troubled face. ‘You suspected this before we came here, didn’t you?’
He sighed. ‘It did cross my mind. Bad things sometimes happen to women who storm out into the night.’
‘You think some evil bastard picked her up? Took her somewhere and killed her?’
Nick nodded. ‘Something like that. I think I need to talk to Essex police when we get home. The trail’s pretty cold by now, but they need to set up a murder inquiry. If the phone’s still live, it might give them a starting point for a search.’
‘Poor Leanne. She wasn’t the sharpest knife in the box, but she was a decent person.’ Then suddenly Stephanie sat bolt upright. ‘Wait a minute. You’re not being straight with me, Nick.’
Startled, he pulled back. ‘What do you mean?’
‘You know what I mean. It wasn’t some stranger that killed Leanne. It must have been someone at the house. Because her place in Spain was sold and the money went into the trust.’ Stephanie’s eyes were wide with horror. ‘Was there an accident? Did Leanne die in the house?’
‘Whoa,’ Nick said, twisting in his seat and gently gripping her shoulders. ‘You’re getting way ahead of yourself here. There’s other explanations, ones that make a lot more sense.’
‘I can’t think of one.’ Chin up, Stephanie was back in control now. She wanted answers and there was no fending her off.
‘What was Leanne’s job? What did she do for Scarlett?’
‘You know that. She was her body double, her impersonator.’
‘Exactly. To someone who was obsessed with Scarlett, Leanne was as good as the real thing. They might even have taken her in the mistaken belief that she
Stephanie shivered. It made such clear and terrible sense. There had often been obsessive fans hanging around outside the hacienda. The same faces showed up again and again whenever Scarlett did any public appearances. Sometimes they got too close and had to be warned off. One or two, like Megan the Stalker, had gone out of control. But what about the others, who managed to hold it together on the surface but who were mad as a box of frogs underneath? Nick’s theory answered all of the questions raised by Leanne’s disappearance much more convincingly than the notion that Scarlett or one of her circle could have anything to do with her death.
