bringing her work home. If she hadn’t told us the kind of bar she was working in, we’d never have known, not from anything she said or did round the house. After the shock passed, we all kind of ignored it. It just didn’t come up. It’s like I said. We all got along together but we weren’t really close. We had our own lives, our own friends.’
Sam was watching Jamie to see if there was any sign of a different response. But both of the others seemed comfortable with Siobhan’s account. ‘Did she have a boyfriend?’
‘She once said she never met any men,’ Siobhan said. ‘I know that sounds weird, but she said the men at work were losers and tossers. We were talking about how hard it is to find the time to meet anyone, never mind invest in a relationship, and she said she couldn’t remember the last time she’d met a bloke she even wanted to have a drink with.’
Another dead end. ‘What was the name of the club where she worked?’ Kevin asked.
They all looked nonplussed. ‘I never asked,’ Tara said. ‘It’s not like we were going to turn up for a drink.’
‘What about you, Jamie? It’s the sort of thing a bloke might be more interested in,’ Sam said.
‘Don’t judge me by your standards,’ Jamie said, a sneer on his face and in his voice.
A low chuckle from Sam. ‘I wasn’t. That’s why I thought you might know. Tara, you said it was up by the airport. Can you remember how you know that?’
Tara frowned and rubbed the side of her cheek with her finger. After a few moments when everyone waited expectantly, she said, ‘She asked me if I knew whether there was any bike parking at the airport. She’d got a cheap flight to Madrid, but it was a really early checkin. She said she’d be as well going from work, because it would only take her fifteen minutes to cycle there.’ When she smiled, Sam could see what Jamie saw in her. Her whole face lightened and she gave the first indication so far that she might be fun. ‘So she must only have been a couple of miles away, tops.’
‘Thank you, we’ll check that out. Is there anyone else you can think of that Leanne was particularly friendly with? One of her fellow Spanish postgrads? Any of the lecturers?’
They exchanged looks again. ‘She was sociable enough, but she didn’t have much free time. Like all of us,’ Tara said ruefully. ‘I can’t think of anyone in particular, but she did a lot of Facebooking. She had a lot of mates in Spain.’
‘I know her password,’ Siobhan said. ‘One time when she was in Spain, she couldn’t get online and she texted me to post something on her Facebook page. It was LCQuixote.’
‘Can you write that down for me?’ Sam slipped his notebook across the table. ‘We could do with some photos too, if you’ve got any?’
Jamie stood up. ‘I’ve got some on the computer. I could print you off a few?’ He returned a few minutes later with a handful of prints on A4 paper. One showed Leanne in a strappy sparkly top raising a glass to the camera, head back and laughing. The ruck of people in the background looked like a party in full swing. Jamie pointed to it. ‘I had a birthday party last year, here in the house.’ There were a couple obviously taken in the kitchen where she was wearing a baggy T-shirt and jeans, leaning against the fridge. In one of them, she was sticking her tongue out at the photographer. The last one showed her standing by her bike, helmet in hand, hair loose, grinning. ‘This one was taken a couple of weeks ago,’ he said. ‘She’d just got back from the library. I was trying out the camera on my new phone. Will these do?’
Kevin nodded. ‘It would be helpful if you could email them to us.’ He was pretty sure they’d got as much as they were going to get from the housemates, so he took out his cards and handed them round. ‘My email address is on there. We’re probably going to have to talk to you again,’ he said. ‘But in the meantime, if anything occurs to you, call us.’ He wasn’t going to hold his breath.
Outside, as they walked back to the car, Sam chuckled. ‘What’s so funny?’ Kevin said.
‘Just thinking how well DI Spencer’s bunch of wankers would have handled that interview. Anything out of the mainstream, like a PhD student hooker, and they’re going to be totally flummoxed.’
Kevin scowled. ‘He’s a complete twat.’
Sam shrugged. ‘He just said out loud what a lot of people think. In a way, I’d rather deal with the likes of Spencer. Better to know where you stand than have to deal with the hypocrites who pretend it makes no odds to them. But deep down, they despise you. You know how I love to dance?’
Kevin knew. It was one of the more surprising things about Sam. It sat awkwardly alongside ruthless ambition and a loyalty that barely went beyond self, but there was no doubting it. ‘Yeah,’ he said, unlocking the car and getting behind the wheel.
Sam settled into the passenger seat, hitching up his trousers to avoid bagging the knees. ‘Occasionally, when I ask a woman to dance, a white woman, she’ll just look me up and down and come straight out with it – “I don’t dance with black guys.” It knocks you back on your heels a bit, because most people just don’t say that kind of thing any more. But that’s fair enough, you know. What pisses me off much more than that is when I ask a white woman to dance and she makes some excuse, like she’s too hot or she’s too tired or she’s waiting for a drink. And then five minutes later, I see her on the floor with some complete muppet. That makes me want to go over and say something so cutting she’ll cry all the way home.’
‘So you’re saying you don’t mind what that bell-end Spencer said?’
Sam stroked his goatee. ‘I mind, but I’m not going to lose sleep over it. And neither should you. Me and my ginger homie, we are going to show them how a murder investigation is run. And that is the best revenge, my friend.’
23
‘I’m a serving police officer,’ Carol said calmly. Underneath the surface, Tony could hear tightly controlled anger. ‘I don’t go anywhere without a police escort. It’s called my team.’
A long silence. A tightening of lips and shoulders. ‘No, of course they don’t come home with me. But I’m presuming you will be providing cover for Dr Hill? … His house is divided into two flats. He lives upstairs and I live downstairs.’ Tony could imagine how much it was costing Carol to reveal details of her private life to Piers Lambert. ‘Surely the same team is capable of watching two doors in the same building? I thought this was a time of austerity?’ More silence. Carol drummed her fingers on the desk and closed her eyes. ‘Thank you, Mr Lambert.’ And the call was over. ‘Bloody bureaucrats,’ Carol said.
‘Tell me you’ve accepted protection,’ Tony said.
