It did not assist in the death of Janice Robinson either. Her murder had been carefully done, with little blood and no evidence, and the man had not had sex with her. After all, Isaac reasoned, if Naughton could act as cool as a cucumber when the police were ready to break down his door, then he was a controlled man, an impassive personality, offering a veil of blandness.
However, Cathy Parkinson’s murder had been anything but. For one thing, she had been knifed repeatedly, the blood splattering on two of the walls in the hotel room that doubled as her home and her business. And then she had been strung up from the shower pipe sticking out of the wall. Why the woman had been hanged made no sense as she would have already been dead. It was as if a statement was being made, but there was no way that the man could have left without his clothing having blood on it, and he had had sex with her. Two diametrically-opposed murders: one neat and tidy, the other messy and bloody. Which brought in the unresolved question as to who was sitting in the back of the BMW when one of the two white men arranged the death of Hector Robinson with the now-deceased Waylon Conroy and his gang.
Inside a bedside cabinet he found a passport in the name of Amanda Upton, a good likeness of the dead woman, close to five thousand American dollars, an equivalent amount in Euros, and a plane ticket for Paris, dated two days after she had died. Which meant that someone had been waiting for her in the French capital, a man most likely, someone that she would have provided with her services: accompanied him to the opera, wined and dined with him, bedded him.
Apart from that, Larry could find no secret compartment, no safe behind the books on a shelf, no notebook taped to the underside of a drawer.
Chapter 22
On the second floor of the building in Marylebone there were two apartments: Amanda Upton’s and another that was owner-occupied. From the street, the building looked small to have two apartments on each floor, but it stretched down the narrow block, an extension that had been done forty years previously, before the tightening of building regulations.
Wendy knocked on the door of the other apartment, and it opened immediately. All the residents in the building had been previously informed by a couple of constables that they would be interviewed. Over the five storeys, there were eight two-bedroom apartments and a couple of studio apartments at the top. Three were owner-occupied, four were leased, and three were vacant.
‘I was expecting you,’ a smartly-dressed woman in her thirties said. ‘I hope this won’t take long, busy day at work.’
‘Not too long,’ Wendy said as she showed her warrant card. ‘Can we come in?’
‘Please do. I’ve got the kettle on, a cup of tea?’
Both the police officers acknowledged they were fine with tea, Gwen saying that she preferred hers black, and Wendy asking for two sugars.
The apartment, they could see, was not as good as Amanda Upton’s, and the furniture and fittings were worn. In short, it needed renovating.
‘You are Sally Fairweather?’ Wendy said after the woman returned with three cups on a tray.
‘I am. I work in the city, financial analyst.’
‘You’ve been told about your neighbour?’ Gwen said, anxious to make her mark, to impress her sergeant.
‘I only ever knew her as Amanda, never her surname. I was told she is involved in a murder enquiry, is that true?’
‘It is. Did you know her?’
‘She wasn’t here often, but when she was, we’d talk, sometimes go out for a meal nearby. She was keen on Indian, not that I was, too spicy for me, but I went anyway.’
‘Good company?’
‘Always, and I went over to her place once or twice, shared a bottle of wine.’
‘Did you ever meet anyone else there?’ Wendy asked.
‘Never. I asked her once about her family and friends, but she always changed the subject. Surprising really, as she was pleasant, attractive, and confident. No idea why she preferred not to talk about herself, but then, some people are loners.’
‘Are you?’ Gwen asked.
‘Not me. I’ve got a steady boyfriend, and sometimes he’s here, sometimes I’m at his place. Low-key romance, taking it slow, see if we’re ready to take it to the next level.’
To Wendy’s parents, the first level would have been marriage and then sleeping together. But Sally Fairweather belonged to a different generation.
‘Were you told that Amanda Upton was dead?’
‘I was. I asked one of the police officers, not that he was too keen to tell me, not sure if he knew too much about it.’
‘He wouldn’t have. Were you upset?’
‘Surprised. I can’t say I was upset. We were acquaintances, and whereas I enjoyed the time that I spent with her, it wasn’t that often.’
‘Did she talk about where her money came from?’
‘I never asked, and no, she never told me. As long as people don’t bother me, I don’t interest myself in their business. Although, judging by the condition of her place, I’d say she must have inherited the money.’
‘And you?’
The woman looked around at her surroundings. ‘Mortgaged to the hilt,’ she said when she resumed looking at the two police officers. ‘I’ll be in debt for years with this place, the reason that it’s not in good condition. I’ve enjoyed the increase in its
