than living rooms. Living rooms were for show. There were no secrets in bedrooms. No hiding.
He looked round. It was hard to tell whether it had been left in a mess by Julie Miller or by the investigators. The bed was unmade. Underwear and jeans were piled at the bottom. A pair of trainers that looked liked they had been kicked off. Drawers pulled open, their contents spilling out.
Phil looked at the bedside cabinet. A Jodi Picoult novel lay there, the bookmark about a third of the way in. He opened the bedside cabinet door. Another couple of books, some prescription blister packs of contraceptive pills. Nothing else.
He knelt down, looked under the bed. Saw something silhouetted against the light on the other side. He stretched his arm in, made contact, pulled it out. A laptop wearing a thin coat of dust. Phil took it out, opened it, booted it up.
‘You missed this,’ he called out.
Rose Martin entered the bedroom, stopped when she saw what he had. ‘Where did you find that?’
‘Under the bed. Right under the bed, mind.’
Rose nodded, her features tight. ‘As you say, we were looking for a missing person. Whoever searched this room wouldn’t have thought she’d be able to fit under there.’
Phil, eyes on the laptop, didn’t rise to her words. He just hoped it wouldn’t be password protected. It wasn’t. Desktop wallpaper appeared, a shaggy-haired dog, its tongue lolling from the corner of its mouth.
‘What about the boyfriend?’
‘Clean. And, believe me, we looked at him from every angle.’
His fingers moved over the keys, searching for anything that would give him a clue as to Julie Miller’s life. He established Wi-Fi connection, clicked on Facebook. Julie Miller’s homepage appeared. In the corner was a photo of a dark-haired woman in her twenties, lying on a bed, her hand in her hair, smiling shyly for the camera, her mouth open as if she was in mid-sentence to the photographer. The photo looked both innocent and intimate at the same time.
‘That her?’
Rose sat down next to him. ‘From the other photos I’ve seen, yes. Do you agree with me that it’s her down there?’
Phil tried to imagine the smiling, pretty face before him superimposed on to the body on the boat. It was depressingly easy to match the two. ‘I… it’s looking that way.’ He kept looking at the photo. ‘Why did she put this one on? Out of all of them she could pick, why this one?’
Rose looked at it too. ‘Because it’s flattering, a good likeness… Maybe her boyfriend liked it.’
‘Maybe.’
He sighed, kept looking through the Facebook profile. She had her place of work as Colchester General Hospital, her schooling as the local secondary in Stanway, her university as Essex in Colchester. She hadn’t moved far away from home.
She didn’t have an enormous number of friends, which was good news for the officers who would have to trawl through them, but there were enough. He started to look through them but didn’t get far.
‘Phil?’
He hadn’t noticed Rose get up and move away. Her voice came from the living room. He got up, followed her. She was standing by the window, the drawn curtains slightly parted, looking downwards.
‘I was right,’ she said. ‘Look.’
Phil looked. Down below them was the River Colne. And the lightship.
He looked at her. ‘Coincidence?’
‘No such thing,’ she said. ‘Not in cases like this.’
Phil looked at his new junior officer. Saw only sadness and concern in her eyes. And a copper’s hunger for answers. Good, thought Phil. The right stuff. Then looked again out of the window.
The white tent had been erected on the boat, a temporary barrier placed along the road. A small crowd of print journalists, photographers and TV cameras had gathered behind the barrier and Detective Chief Inspector Ben Fenwick was still down there giving an address. Or practising his cliches, thought Phil.
‘There he is,’ said Phil. ‘King Cliche rides again.’
Without looking at her, Phil felt Rose bridle and stiffen beside him. He had said that deliberately to see what her reaction would be. He knew now. She was sleeping with his boss. And no doubt telling him everything he said. Phil would have to watch himself. Or make sure he only said things he wanted to get back to Fenwick.
Phil sighed. ‘Time to pay the parents a visit, I think.’
‘We don’t know for definite it’s her, do we? Shouldn’t we wait?’
Phil gestured to the crowd of reporters below them. ‘And let one of them do it instead? I think we should at least talk to them.’
Rose nodded.
They would move in a moment. But for now they just stood there. The room still and tomb-like behind them.
16
The bell rang again.
Suzanne stayed where she was, slumped against the front door.
Was it him? Back again? Had he hidden himself outside, waiting for the police to leave, to see Suzanne return alone? Was it?
The doorbell rang again.
Suzanne stared at the door, at the chains across, at the lock. Hoped it would be strong enough. She reached out a hand to open it, pulled it back. Just stared at it.
‘Leave me alone…
The angry resolve of a few moments ago was dissipating. Panic was again threatening to overwhelm her. Her heart began pumping like sports car pistons, pounding the blood round her body. She stretched out her hand.
Her third-floor flat in the old Edwardian house had no entry phone or intercom system. If someone rang, they had to be let in manually. Down three flights of stairs to the front of the house.
No. Opening the door was one thing. Going down all those stairs – alone – was another. So she stayed where she was. Waited.
The bell didn’t sound again.
They had gone, left her in peace. Suzanne sighed.
Then her phone rang.
She jumped again. Looked around. The handset lay on the floor, the plastic and metal flashing and bleating.
‘No, just… just fuck off…’
It kept ringing, an insistent, piercing, metallic clang. She stayed where she was, eyes screwed tight shut. Wanting it to end, wanting to be somewhere – anywhere – else.
The phone kept ringing.
Until the answerphone kicked in, her voice telling the caller to leave a message, then the tone.
Then: ‘Hey, Suzanne, it’s me. I’m outside now, you-’
Zoe. Her best friend. She got to her knees, made her way into the living room, grabbed the phone.
‘Zoe?’ She was breathing heavily, like the last few minutes had given her an hour’s worth of gym workout.
‘You OK? What’s the matter?’
‘Oh… oh…’ Struggling to get her breath.
Zoe’s voice was full of concern. ‘What’s happened?’
‘It’s started again, Zoe, it’s started again…’
Suzanne stared into her coffee mug. It was one of her favourites, an Indian design in various swirling shades of turquoise, bought from The Pier before the shop crashed and disappeared.
