‘And in all the fuss and confusion around Scarlett’s death, nobody was paying much attention to detail,’ she said. ‘The trustees probably didn’t notice the money from the sale of the villa in amongst all the other cash that was coming in from realising Scarlett’s assets.’
‘Who are the trustees?’ Nick asked.
‘Simon, Marina and George.’
‘Maybe it’s time to talk to George,’ Nick said.
‘As soon as we get back to London. Do you still want me to send that text to Leanne’s phone?’
‘Oh, I think so. It’ll be interesting to see what a text from a dead woman looks like.’
4
It was after midnight by the time they returned to Nick’s flat. They fell into bed exhausted, but not too exhausted to take comfort in each other. Afterwards, when Nick had slipped into sleep, Stephanie lay awake, gripped by an abiding sadness. Jimmy was seldom absent from the front of her mind for long. She had imagination enough to create endless scenarios of misery and anguish for him. In spite of everyone telling her not to blame herself for what had happened, Stephanie could not escape the guilt that washed through her in regular waves. If they didn’t find him alive and well, she would feel tainted by her failure for the rest of her life. She’d made a promise to Scarlett and she had not kept it.
Eventually, she drifted into restless sleep and morning rolled around far too soon. By some miracle, Stephanie’s whereabouts hadn’t leaked to the media. Nick was insistent that while the flat was still a safe house, they shouldn’t do anything that meant her breaking cover. That included turning up at George’s office or eating in the sort of restaurant where waiters had paparazzi numbers on speed dial. ‘Poor George was completely stumped,’ Stephanie told Nick after she’d spoken to the showbiz agent. ‘I suggested he could come here. You’d have thought I was suggesting he walk through South Central LA waving a wallet full of dollars.’
Nick grinned. ‘I take it he’s coming here, then?’
‘Of course he is. He said he’d be with us around eleven. He’ll expect biscuits.’
Nick crossed to the kitchen cupboards and produced a bag of cantucci and a packet of Florentines. ‘Will these do?’
‘Another demonstration that men are from Mars and women are from Venus,’ Stephanie said. ‘I couldn’t have these in the house. Well, I could. But they wouldn’t be there the next day. And if I’d known they were there, they wouldn’t be.’
Nick grinned. ‘I’ll bear that in mind. By the way. I had an email overnight from Vivian McKuras. They’re running headlong into a brick wall over there.’
‘All the technology we’ve got now, and yet one man can walk off with a little boy and there’s no way of tracking him?’
‘The trouble with technology is that criminals understand what it can do just as well as we do. So they figure out ways to circumvent it. In a case like this, unless they get a reliable, quantifiable witness sighting, their best chance of tracing the perp and the victim is when they make contact about the ransom or the terms of release. No contact . . . ’
Stephanie bit her lip, stricken.
Nick slapped a hand against his thigh in anger at his stupidity. ‘Jesus, listen to me. Could I be any more insensitive? I’m sorry.’ He spread his arms out.
She didn’t move towards him, but she shook her head. ‘It’s OK. I don’t want to be wrapped up in cotton wool. I need to know the reality of what’s going on. It’s hard, but I don’t want to be an ostrich about this.’
‘OK. But I’ll try to be a bit more considerate about how I express myself. One good thing – I asked McKuras to confirm to my boss that she still needs my input, so I’m cleared to carry on doing whatever unorthodox investigation it is that we’re doing.’
Now she moved into his arms. ‘That’s good. When are you going to talk to the Essex police?’
Nick looked over her head towards the glass wall with its spectacular rooftop view. ‘I wanted to discuss that with you,’ he said slowly. ‘Technically, I should speak to them asap. Suspicion of murder is not something a cop’s supposed to sit on.’
‘No, I can see how they’d take a dim view of that,’ Stephanie said, acid in her tone. ‘I can hear a “but” coming though.’
‘This is a pretty cold case now. And my primary concern is getting Jimmy back. While we’re still stumbling around in the dark on that, I don’t want to do anything that might provoke the abductor.’
‘You think the kidnap and the murder are connected? How? That doesn’t make any sense.’
Nick moved away from her and started preparing the coffee machine. ‘I don’t know what I think. At the moment, it’s all one big confused jumble. For all I know, some demented obsessive is snatching people who were connected to Scarlett. Like a mad souvenir collection.’ He banged the worktop with his clenched fist. ‘Call it superstition, if that helps. I just don’t want the people we’re talking to about Jimmy to freak out because they’re getting calls from cops about a possible murder. There’s nothing more calculated to make people shut up about anything.’
‘So you want to wait? Not talk to anyone at Essex police about Leanne until we’ve got Jimmy back?’
She saw his back stiffen and knew he was already preparing himself for not getting Jimmy back. Stephanie wished she didn’t know that. Because there was no way she could let herself concede there was the slightest chance that would happen. Someone needed to keep the flame alive. If that isolated her from Nick, hard though it would be, she’d still make that call.
‘That’s what I’m thinking.’ He turned back to her and raised his eyebrows in a question.
‘You’ll get no argument from me. Nobody but us seems to have noticed Leanne’s missing. I don’t think it’ll make any difference if we sound the alert today or in a month’s time.’
Nick’s reply was cut off by Stephanie’s phone jittering on the worktop. ‘It’s from Leanne,’ she said, grabbing the phone. Nick leaned over her shoulder so he could read the text along with her. ‘Don’t thnk its a gd idea 2 get 2gethr. 2 sad 4 Jimmy & 4me. Soz. Lx.’
Stephanie felt her heart contract. Nick’s guess had been in the ballpark. ‘You got it right,’ she said bleakly. ‘That’s not Leanne.’
‘But it’s someone who wants us to think Leanne is still alive and well. Somebody who doesn’t know we’ve been to Spain.’
‘That doesn’t exactly narrow it down.’
‘It does in a way, Stephanie. It lets her Spanish friends off the hook. Word of our visit will have gone round like wildfire. If any of them was responsible for her death, they’d never have answered your text. Whoever got rid of Leanne, it happened in England, before she went back to Spain.’
Before Stephanie could respond, the entryphone beeped. Nick buzzed George up and went to the door to greet him. George walked in, tentative as a cat on new territory. Stephanie had positioned herself by the glass wall so George would get the full-on smack-in-the-face of the view as soon as he walked in. But he seemed oblivious to the panorama, crossing straight to her. He took her hands in his and gave her his most searching look. ‘My dear Stephanie,’ he said, his voice velvet with concern. ‘You must be beside yourself. What a terrible experience for you.’ He looked over his shoulder at Nick. ‘I’m sure Nick’s already got the bases covered, but if there’s anything at all I can do to help, all you have to do is ask. I am at your command.’
Stephanie squeezed her eyes shut to fight the tears that welled up in response. ‘For God’s sake, George. Can you stop being quite so nice? I can take anything but kindness at the moment.’
He chuckled and pulled her into a chaste embrace. ‘That’s my girl.’ He stepped away and looked around him for the first time, taking in the dozen or so guitars hanging on the walls or sitting on stands. ‘Do I take it you are something of a musician, Sergeant Nicolaides?’
‘Call me Nick, please. Yes, I play a bit.’ He waved George towards the squashy leather sofa that was his only concession to living-room furniture. ‘Please, have a seat. Coffee?’
George caught Stephanie’s eye, one eyebrow raised in a question. ‘Yes, George, it’s safe.’
