‘What of it?’
‘Are you aware that she engineered that absurd little cameo in the Three Bells?’
‘How do you mean?’
‘She sent DC Gallagher in to approach my clients, while she waited outside in her car; she then appeared miraculously in the lane at the critical moment. Obviously she arranged the whole thing. It is the most blatant attempt at entrapment I’ve ever encountered.’
‘If you have any criticism…’
Fenwick raised his hands. ‘This is completely off the record, yes? For the moment, at any rate. Do you also know that she met Mr Rafferty two days ago, at his home, in the course of investigating the tragic death of his stepdaughter, Marion Summers-who was poisoned, so I understand, possibly by someone interfering with her drink?’
‘Yes?’
‘It is a cliche, is it not, that murders are committed by close relatives of the deceased? Close family are the first suspects, yes? Stepfathers of beautiful young women most of all. Ergo, Mr Rafferty is guilty as sin. Sadly, though, there is no evidence to support this. Therefore an enthusiastic officer-an over- enthusiastic officer-might be tempted to create some.’
Bren started to say something angrily, but Fenwick waved his hand at him. ‘No, no, please, I’m making no accusations. At this stage. I’ve met DI Kolla. She has an interesting record. Impressive, but not really a team player-that was my impression. Bit of a chip on the shoulder? And newly made up to inspector, and no doubt anxious to justify…’
Bren was getting to his feet.
‘Please don’t take offence, Inspector Gurney,’ Fenwick said smoothly, rising also. ‘I’m trying to do us both a favour. I suspect the Crown Prosecution Service will be looking very hard at this one.’ He held out his hand. ‘Good morning to you.’
Bren ignored the hand, opened the door and stood aside.
‘What do you think, Kathy?’ Brock said.
‘I think he has a point,’ she said heavily.
‘Well, I’m afraid he’s right about the CPS. Come on.’ He got stiffly to his feet. ‘You’ve got a murder to solve.’ seven
K athy sat at her desk, furious with herself. Across the way, Pip’s empty chair was a vivid accusation. You screwed up, it said. You let Pip down. The worst of it was that Rafferty would now be so much harder to touch. How had he got Julian Fenwick to come out at the crack of dawn? It was just one of many mysteries. What did she really know about Marion Summers, after all?
She stared at the pile of paper on her desk, lacking the stomach to begin. On the top was a printout of calls to and from Marion’s mobile. Pip had been working on it, marking it with coloured marker pens and careful notes in girlish handwriting, like a school assignment. Yellow meant the university, it seemed-calls to the departmental office, to the university library, to her supervisor Dr da Silva. Green meant other work-related, Kathy guessed-the British Library, the Family Records Centre at Finsbury, the National Archives at Kew. Then there was blue for various services-a minicab service, a restaurant, a hair salon in NW3. Why there?
But the most interesting bunch were highlighted in day-glo pink, and seemed to be private numbers. K. Rafferty in Ealing was her mother’s home number of course. Then there was S. Warrender in Notting Hill, called regularly up until five weeks before. T. Flowers and E. Blake were persistent numbers, and also-was this a mistake? Kathy was looking at the last of the six pink numbers, against which the name entered was Marion Summers.
She checked and had it confirmed. Marion had been making regular calls to a second mobile in her own name-that she’d bought and given to someone else, perhaps?
The last call Marion made before she died was to T. Flowers. Kathy checked through the record. There had been sixteen calls between them in the previous month, the final one being a call from Marion at 8.16 on the morning of her death. Kathy wished she knew what they’d talked about. Had Marion spoken of someone following her? Had they planned to meet later that day?
E. Blake was interesting too, the pattern of calls odd. Three weeks earlier, E. Blake had sent Marion a stream of text messages, dozens of them. She replied at first, then stopped, but E. Blake went on, bombarding her with calls for a further four days.
Kathy put the phone records aside and considered the papers stacked beneath from the previous day, plus a new heap alongside that had arrived overnight. She made a coffee and got to work, trying to cull out the stuff she could leave till later.
After half an hour she had dealt with the most urgent items, and returned to the phone records. She made a start on checking the names, and established that the E. Blake number was registered to a Mrs Eleanor Blake, living in Manchester. After being assured that her son wasn’t in trouble with the police, Mrs Blake explained that it was he, Andy, who had the use of the phone, and that she would be very pleased if Kathy could persuade him to cut down on the number of calls he was making, which were costing her a fortune. ‘He’s a student at the university,’ she explained. ‘Do you want his address?’
Kathy tried the number of S. Warrender in Notting Hill a couple of times and was diverted directly to a message service. T. Flowers wasn’t answering his or her phone either. There was another number that interested her, that of a public phone in Leicester Square. A call had been made from there on the afternoon before Marion was poisoned. There were probably surveillance cameras nearby if she cared to look, but most likely it was just a friend out shopping, Kathy thought. It was all a matter of how far you went, how far you could afford to go, with loose threads everywhere. If you plucked at them all you’d eventually unravel the whole of London, discover what every citizen had been up to on the fatal day.
She looked again at the list in front of her and made up her mind. It was time she found out about Marion’s student friends.
•
The address was a narrow brick terrace in a backstreet in Southwark, not very far from the student flats in Stamford Street where Marion had once lived. Her knock was answered by a big beefy young man, unshaven, who yawned and scratched his belly through a threadbare T-shirt as Kathy introduced herself.
‘Yeah, that’s me,’ he said, voice croaky but not belligerent. ‘What’s it about?’
‘Can I come in?’
‘Sure.’ He shrugged and turned away, leading her down a dark narrow corridor to a small kitchen at the rear. The place smelled of sour damp and burnt cheese and stale beer. There were dirty dishes and empty drink cans and pizza boxes everywhere. He clumsily cleared a seat for Kathy, and leaned back against the sink facing her. ‘So what have I done?’
Kathy took out her notepad. ‘Do you know someone called Marion Summers, Andy?’
He blinked, puzzled, then made an exaggerated frown. ‘Ye-es.’
‘When did you last see her?’
‘Oh, ages ago. Why? What’s it about?’
‘She died three days ago, on Tuesday. Haven’t you seen the papers?’
His mouth dropped open; he appeared thoroughly shocked. ‘No! That’s terrible. How? What happened?’
‘We’re investigating that now. Where were you last Tuesday?’ He shook his head, running both hands through his hair. ‘Tuesday… Tuesday… Well, a maths lecture at ten, followed by a physics prac in the afternoon. I had lunch with two mates at the pub-or maybe that was Wednesday, I’m not sure. No, it was Tuesday.’
Kathy took their names. ‘Are they friends of Marion’s too?’
‘Nah. Look, I barely knew her. I only met her a couple of times.’
‘Go on.’
‘Well, the first time I was having coffee with a friend of mine, Tina Flowers-she’s a student, stays in the student flats in Stamford Street, where I used to live. Well, that’s where we were, having coffee, when Marion called in to see her. I thought, wow, she was a knockout, really attractive. She and Tina talked about some work they were doing, and then…’ He shook his head, and his face had gone very pale. ‘Christ.’
Kathy got to her feet. ‘Sit down, Andy. Put your head between your knees.’ She filled a glass under the tap and brought it to him.
‘Sorry… it just hit me. Sorry…’
