No one she spoke to in the cafes remembered serving Marion Summers, nor could they recall anything unusual happening the previous day. There was a florist’s a couple of streets away, but she couldn’t see any flowers like those in Marion’s vase, and the assistant had no idea where they might have come from. Kathy rang Gael and established that someone in the library had a digital camera, and asked her to send pictures of the flowers to an email address she gave her.
She drove across the river to Southwark, near Waterloo station, bustling and noisy with the sound of roadworks after the patrician calm of St James’s Square, and in Stamford Street found Marion’s address, a converted block of self-catering student apartments. There was no sign of the name Summers on any of the mailboxes in the entrance hall, and the woman at the front desk confirmed they had no resident of that name. After a search of her computer she found that Marion had lived there for two years, but had moved on three months previously. The forwarding address she’d given was the office of the university department in which she was enrolled, at the Strand campus on the other side of the river.
Kathy rang Pip.
‘No, boss, I can’t find anything on the PNC.’ She said it with a sigh.
‘See what you can find out about Marion, will you?’ Kathy gave her the credit card and driver’s licence numbers. ‘I want to know where she’s been living for the past three months. Possibly somewhere out past Swiss Cottage. Maybe we can find where those keys in her bag were cut. And find her parents too. And check Missing Persons, see if anyone’s reported her absence last night or this morning.’
‘Okay. Er… someone called Rayner just sent me some flowers-pictures, on my email.’
‘Ah yes. I’d like you to find out what they are, Pip.’
‘Pardon?’ She sounded incredulous.
‘Marion brought them in to the library the day before yesterday. Maybe a boyfriend gave them to her.’
‘Oh. Anything else?’
‘Yes, the first thing to do: phone Westminster Council and get them to try to trace the contents of a waste bin in St James’s Square. Marion dropped the remains of her lunch there yesterday.’
‘Ah.’
‘Just do your best, Pip. I’ll get us some help.’
•
The secretary at the Department of European Literature was eager to find out how Marion had died, and why the police were involved.
‘We’re trying to contact her next of kin and get her home address,’ Kathy explained. ‘So far we’re not having much luck. I’ve just been over to Stamford Street, where she used to live, and they told me they’ve been forwarding her mail here.’
‘That’s right.’ The woman reached for the glasses hanging from a fluorescent green plastic chain around her neck and raised them to her nose. She waved Kathy in through the flap in the counter.
A distraught student appeared at her back. ‘Karen, the student photocopier’s broken down again. Can I use the office one? Please? ’
‘Certainly not,’ the secretary snapped. ‘Go and talk to Agu.’
‘Shit.’
‘Language!’ She took Kathy to a bank of pigeon holes on the wall, and pointed to POST-GRAD STUDENTS M- Z, from which she retrieved a thick wad of envelopes and began sorting. When she finished she had formed one large pile, many with overseas stamps, and another small one, of letters addressed to Marion.
Kathy began opening them: an overdue book notice from the university library; a bank statement showing a balance of? 386.54; a jeweller’s valuation of a diamond ring, given as? 2400; a notice of expiry of a reader’s ticket to the National Archives; and a letter from a Dr Grace Pontius at Cornell University in the United States confirming her attendance at a conference in August.
The secretary didn’t seem to know anything about Marion’s family circumstances, and after checking with a couple of her colleagues in the office, couldn’t find anyone else who did either.
‘Maybe her supervisor would know,’ she offered. His name was Dr da Silva, but it appeared that he wasn’t in the department that day.
Kathy took down his contact details and suggested that surely the university would have some kind of record of an original home address or next of kin. The woman phoned through to student records, and after some time they rang back with the details that Marion had given on her original undergraduate enrolment form, six years before. Her home address was in Ayr, Scotland, with a phone number listed.
When she got back to the car, Kathy tried the Scottish number. It rang and rang, and she was on the point of giving up when a woman answered, her voice quavering and hesitant.
‘Ye-es?’
‘Hello,’ Kathy said, ‘I wonder if you can help me. I’m trying to trace friends or relatives of Marion Summers.’
‘Oh aye? Well, I’m her auntie, but if you’re selling something.. .’
‘No, nothing like that. My name’s Kathy Kolla, and I’m a police inspector from London. Could I ask your name, madam?’
‘Bessie, Bessie Wardlaw. Did you say the polis?’
‘Yes. Are Marion’s parents available, Mrs Wardlaw?’
‘Available? Well, her mother’s living in London.’
‘Can you give me her name and address and phone number?’
There was a pause, then a plaintive objection. ‘I have no idea who you are, do I? I mean, you phone me out of the blue…’
‘You’re right. I can give you a number of the Metropolitan Police for you to ring back. It is important.’
‘Och, can you no’ just tell me what this is all about?’
‘I’m afraid I have some bad news, Bessie, about Marion. I’m trying to contact her nearest relatives.’
‘Oh no!’ Kathy heard the woman’s hoarse breathing on the other end of the line and hoped she wasn’t going to faint. She was regretting this call, catching the frailty of the woman at the other end, and thinking she should have handed this over to the Ayr police to deal with. ‘Do you have someone there with you, Bessie?’
‘Aye, the minister, Mr Fotheringham.’
‘Would you mind letting me speak to him?’
There was a clunk as Bessie dropped the phone. Finally a man came on. Kathy repeated who she was.
‘I’m very sorry to have to give Bessie some sad news, Mr Fotheringham. I’m afraid Marion Summers, her niece, died in hospital yesterday.’
‘That’s shocking news indeed. How did it happen?’
‘She collapsed in the library where she was working. She went into a coma and I’m afraid they weren’t able to revive her.’
‘Och, poor lassie. Was it the diabetes?’
‘We’re carrying out a post-mortem to establish the cause. You obviously know her well.’
‘Oh aye. She lived with Bessie for several years before she went down to London, to the university.’
‘Bessie said Marion’s mother lives in London, is that right?’
‘Aye, she moved down a couple of years ago, I believe.’
‘Was Marion living with her?’
‘Hang on, I’ll ask Bessie.’
After a moment he came back. ‘No, they had separate addresses. I have them here.’ Kathy heard the pages of a notebook turning, then he read out the entries. Marion’s mother was Sheena Rafferty, with a home address in Ealing in West London. However the address for Marion was her old one in the student apartments in Stamford Street.
‘You wouldn’t know if she had a partner, a regular boyfriend?’
There was a muffled discussion, then, ‘I’m afraid we can’t help you there. Bessie hasn’t had much contact with Marion of late.’ Then he added, voice cautious, ‘There’s nothing suspicious, is there, in Marion’s death?’
‘We’re not ruling anything out at this stage, Mr Fotheringham. Why? Is there something we should know?’
‘No, no. Bessie hasn’t spoken to her sister-Marion’s mother-for over a year. She doesn’t really know what’s
