‘So she came to London to seek a new sperm donor?’ Steele weighs it up. ‘It’s a bit Dick Whittington but I’ll go with it.’
‘Well, it wasn’t just that, remember. She told Gina Hicks that she was sure Thomas Lapaine was having an affair, so I think it was more a case of “you’re cheating on me, and you can’t give me what I want most in the world anyway – a child – so why am I putting up with it? I’m off.’’’
‘Makes sense,’ says Steele. ‘Of course it contradicts his version – the loving note she supposedly left which we only have his word for, but to be honest I think I’d struggle to believe the sky was blue if it came out of Thomas Lapaine’s mouth.’
‘But we’ve definitely ruled him out, right?’
Steele hands me a marker pen. ‘Well and truly as of a few hours ago. Emily took a statement from Abigail Shawcroft’s nosy neighbour and she confirmed seeing him at the house that night and leaving again the next morning.’
I walk over to the incident board, draw a thick black cross through Thomas Lapaine’s name, then change markers and write ‘Illegal surrogacy??’ across the top in red.
It feels like a red kind of theory.
Nate Hicks’ name has already been crossed out. ‘Definitely schmoozing in Cardiff then?’ I ask.
‘Looks that way,’ replies Steele. ‘Hotel confirms him checking in and out. CCTV has him going up to his room at twelve ten a.m. and he doesn’t appear to leave again until breakfast. His car didn’t move from the car park all night.’
‘Bollocks.’
The door opens and Parnell walks in, instantly making a beeline for me.
‘Well, look who it is, the international jetsetter. Glad to be back, are we?’
The answer’s a definite no. Right now, I’d give anything to be back in Mulderrin, strolling up the Long Road, burning off the last of my raspberry mille-feuille. In fact, I want to be Bill Swords. I want to cruise around the county in my rust-bucket of a car, singing along to Dusty Springfield songs and making ‘tosser’ signs at other drivers. Or I’d settle for running a B&B like Manda Moran. Hell, I’d settle for running a B&B with Manda Moran – she looked like she could do with the help.
Basically, I want to be anything other than back here, in this room, soul-deep in this wretched case.
Steele’s feeling the same. ‘How bad is this, folks? There was a woman murdered in Wimbledon on Sunday night, a strangulation, and I was almost relieved thinking it could be linked to our case. I was actually hoping for a serial killer, can you believe that?’ I can, wholeheartedly. ‘Turns out it was some scumbag she’d given the brush-off after a few dates. He walked into Mitcham nick last night, confessed the whole thing.’ She pulls her hair back off her face. ‘We can dream, eh?’
I look at Parnell. ‘Still no Saskia, I take it?’
There’s a rising worry in his eyes. ‘No. Phone’s still off and there’s no sign of life at the flat. I’ve got a Mrs Stevens across the hall doing covert surveillance’ – a quick smirk at me – ‘so as soon as Saskia or anyone else turns up, we’ll be on it.’
‘Facebook?’ I say. The solution to everything.
‘Can’t find her,’ says Renée. ‘She’s obviously got tight privacy settings.’
I sigh, throw my pen down, agitated. ‘It just feels like we should be doing more. Saskia’s got motive, she lied to us, she’s gone AWOL for God’s sake and .?.?.’
Steele halts my tailspin with one point of a finger. ‘OK, OK, OK, she possibly has motive – if she thought Maryanne was planning to grass her up to Gina Hicks for either shagging her husband, or shagging other people’s husbands for money, then absolutely, that’s reason to shut her up. But we don’t know Maryanne was planning to do that.’
I take a breath. ‘Gina Hicks specifically told her to make any contact through Saskia, but we know she was in the café down the road on the Friday before she died, so she obviously wanted to speak to Gina without Saskia knowing. What other conclusions can we draw?’
Steele throws her hands up. ‘That she thought the Donatella Caffé did the meanest espresso ristretto this side of the equator? That she was dropping off a Christmas card? That she was lunching with Lord Lucan? We don’t know!’
I bite my cheeks but Steele’s wise to my little angry ticks.
‘Look, we’re all on the same side here, Kinsella, and I agree there’s motive to be explored, but Saskia French hasn’t lied to us any more than anyone else, including Gina Hicks, and at this point we don’t have any reason to believe she’s even gone AWOL. She’s gone to her parents, that’s what she said, isn’t it, Lu?’ Parnell nods. ‘Which is entirely normal at this time of year and given the fact she wasn’t under arrest or even a formal suspect, we had absolutely no right to stop her. No right to even ask for the address.’
Renée asks Parnell, ‘Where do her folks live?’
‘Somerset, apparently.’
‘If it’s rural Somerset, mobile reception’s not great,’ says Renée.
‘Or she’s switched her phone off because she doesn’t want punters calling her at her parents?’ adds Steele.
I’ve got no choice but to nod along. Steele calls the shots and she invariably calls them with a combination of searing logic and calm reason. She’s virtually impossible to argue with.
‘And another thing,’ she continues, ‘I’ve been looking at the CCTV again and yes, I’m going to keep an open mind, of course, but honestly .?.?. I don’t think it’s a woman. I don’t think a woman could have lifted the body that leisurely. Maryanne, Alice, whatever we’re calling her, she wasn’t exactly tiny, was she?’
‘Five feet six, just under ten stone,’ I say, keen to show I have concrete facts as well as unsubstantiated theories.
‘Saskia French’s a unit, Boss, I wouldn’t rule it out,’ says Parnell.
Steele puts her palms flat on the table. ‘I’m not, Lu. I’m just not prepared to start panicking and canvassing the Somerset countryside just yet.’ She nods towards Renée, who’s packed up, wrapped up, and ready for the off. ‘Now if you don’t mind, I’m going to follow my learned friend’s lead and bugger off home. Tomorrow, we go again.’
But I’m not ready to go home yet. I’m not ready to be alone.
Parnell reads my mind with a resounding, ‘No, Kinsella! No pub today. I’m in the doghouse enough already. Turns out that buying your wife and your mother the same perfume for Christmas is a bit of a no-no.’ He looks to us for sympathy, finds none. ‘I don’t know .?.?. women .?.?. it’s a bloody minefield .?.?.’
*
Aiden Doyle doesn’t knock me back, though. He says he has an appointment with Sky but if I give him ten minutes, he’ll try to change it. Then he asks me if I enjoyed Mulderrin. Did I get a chance to do the open-top bus tour? Have a ride on the Mulderrin Eye?
The joker.
As promised – well, fourteen minutes later, but who’s counting? – he calls me back to say we’re on. An hour later, we’re sitting in the upstairs window of the Chandos, sipping cheap ale while overlooking the relative calm of Trafalgar Square as it braces itself for tomorrow’s New Year’s Eve onslaught. He’s looking even more handsome than I remember. The same distressed jeans but with a white long-sleeved top that shows off a chest that manages to stay on both the right side of toned and the right side of vanity.
‘So you cancelled your Sky Engineer, I’m honoured,’ I say.
It’s tragic but I actually mean it.
‘Ah sure, I hardly watch the bloody thing anyway. What is there to watch? Baking shows and bad news, that’s about it.’ His accent seems stronger, richer, from his flying visit back to Mulderrin – more of a pulse than a lilt. ‘I reckon you’ve saved me forty pounds a month and you’ve introduced me to London’s cheapest pint. You’re like my financial guardian angel.’
I catch myself in the window, wish I’d put my hair up. ‘God, don’t let my boss hear you say that. She’s threatening to second me onto Financial Intelligence as it is.’
‘Don’t fancy it?’ he asks, trying and failing to open a bag of peanuts.
I take over, tear the corner with my teeth and hand them back. ‘Would you? Spending eight hours a day analysing SARs.’