Private Lives

36



Despite working in the media for almost a decade, Anna had never seen a printing press. She had imagined a hangar full of hot iron rollers smelling of wood pulp, the wheezing machines churning out the magazines and newspapers one by one to be collected up by inky-fingered paper boys at the end of the conveyor belt. The reality was much slicker and high-tech – everything automated, robotic and gliding on air like footage from a Japanese car plant. And the noise! That had been the biggest shock: even wearing the unflattering yellow ear-defenders, she could barely hear what her host was saying – or rather shouting – to her.

‘I said I’m not sure I should even be talking to you,’ yelled Bruce Miles, the general manager of the Colby Press, this huge printing plant in Leicestershire. He was leading Anna across a steel gantry, inspecting the printer below as he went. Her grip tightened on the handrail; her four-inch heels weren’t ideal for this sort of environment.

‘You know we do a lot of work for Steinhoff Publications?’ shouted Miles. ‘If they thought I was talking about things I shouldn’t be, they could cut our contract, and do you know how many millions that would cost us?’

‘I understand your position, Mr Miles,’ said Anna into his ear. ‘And I appreciate you seeing me, but this is the easy way to do it. We could give you a witness summons to attend court, and believe me, you wouldn’t want the hassle of all that.’

He looked at her for a moment, then nodded.

‘Come into my office,’ he shouted, and opened a heavy door. When it was closed, the noise was reduced to a mere whine and Anna gratefully took off her ear-defenders.

‘Tea?’ Miles said, sitting behind his desk. The office was strikingly disorganised after the shiny efficiency of the shop floor.

‘No thank you,’ she said, glancing at the clock on the wall. She had somewhere else to be and needed this to be as short and sweet as possible. ‘I’ll get straight to the point, if I may.’

Miles gestured to the plastic chair facing his desk. ‘Please do.’

‘Well, I know you print the UK edition of Stateside as part of your contract with Steinhoff,’ said Anna. ‘I just need to find out what day last October’s issue of the magazine went to press.’

He reached behind him and took out a red hardback ledger.

‘I’ve got that information right here,’ he said, licking his thumb and leafing through the pages.

Somehow Anna found it strangely reassuring that a cutting-edge operation like the Colby Press still kept all its records in proper books rather than on some computer spreadsheet. She leaned forward as he turned it around for her to read.

‘The content of the magazine comes to us as files. The magazine’s production manager was supposed to send them to us on the eighth of June, but we didn’t get them until three days later, on the Friday.’ He sighed, as if this was something that clients did just to annoy him. ‘So we actually printed here. The twelfth of June,’ he said running his finger along the date line.

Dammit, thought Anna. That wasn’t the news she was hoping for.

‘Well, thanks for letting me know, Mr Miles,’ she said, standing up.

‘That’s all you wanted?’ He looked a little disappointed. ‘Are you sure you don’t want that cup of tea? It’s a long way back to London.’

She glanced at the clock again. ‘I’d love to, but I have another appointment.’

As she walked towards her car, Anna pulled out her BlackBerry and tapped in a message to Helen as she went: ‘Stateside printed 12 June. Balon4Mayor registered 1 June. Enough time for magazine to know about it. Strengthen their argument public interest?’

Inside her Mini, she opened her road atlas, wondering if the detour she was planning was worth the risk. Travelling back to London at this time of day, she figured she could easily claim that traffic hold-ups had stopped her getting back to the office, although she wouldn’t put it past Helen to check that with the AA.

‘Sod it,’ she whispered, firing up the engine. She pulled out of the industrial estate and, ignoring the signs to London, turned the car north.

Ruby Hart lived with her mother in a pebble-dashed semi on a council estate that showed all the signs of poverty and neglect. There was a skeletal Christmas tree still lying on its side in the small overgrown front garden, presumably marooned there since December, and a rusted baby buggy parked by the door, its seat filled with a leaking black bin bag. What a far cry it was from the sleek Thameside flat that Amy Hart had died in, thought Anna as she pulled her car up outside.

She sat in the Mini, hesitating, telling herself that she had about thirty seconds to start the engine and drive back to London. Eventually she got out and walked up the path with purpose. She was just about to press the bell when the door was opened by a tired-looking middle-aged woman.

‘You must be Anna.’

‘That’s me. Are you Ruby’s mum?’

The woman nodded.

‘I suppose you’d better come in.’

Liz Hart shuffled inside, her manner unhurried and slightly weary. Anna supposed she was still a mother in mourning. Ruby had said she was forty-five, but the shapeless navy tracksuit, over-dyed hair and deep lines on her face made her look ten years older.

‘Ruby’s just gone to the Co-op to get some biscuits,’ said Liz, showing Anna into an old-fashioned living room that smelled of boiled food drifting in through a hatch in the wall to the kitchen. The front door slammed and Amy walked in holding a packet of Garibaldis.

‘Oh hi,’ she said, suddenly shy. ‘I didn’t think you’d come.’

When Ruby had called Anna three days earlier to ask her how she was getting on, Anna knew it was the moment when she could have admitted that she hadn’t found out anything concrete and finished all this amateur sleuthing right there. Instead she found herself volunteering to visit the Hart family in Doncaster.

‘I wanted to give you both an update, although I’m not sure I have that much to tell you.’

Liz Hart pulled out a nest of tables and put out a teapot and a plate of sandwiches that remained untouched as Anna told them about her meetings with Mandy Stigwood, Ryan Jones and Gilbert Bryce.

When she finished speaking, she realised that Liz Hart was crying.

‘Sorry,’ said the woman. ‘I’m finding this quite hard.’

Anna felt around in her bag and handed her a tissue.

‘Thanks, love,’ she said, dabbing at her eyes. ‘I mean it. Thank you, for everything you are doing for us. For Amy.’ She puffed out her cheeks to compose herself. ‘It’s just I can’t help thinking how it could have been. You send your kids out into the world and you hope for the best, but who knows if they’re making the right decisions?’ She shook her head. ‘When Amy got to university I thought she’d make a better life for herself. All those opportunities, all those nice people she’d meet, but as it turns out, she’d have been better off around here, wouldn’t she?’

Anna knew what Liz Hart meant. Life on the estate would have been hard and her choices much more limited, but at least she would have been alive, and for a mother, the only thing that mattered was your child being safe and well. She felt a swell of resolve. Over the last two weeks she had asked herself many times why she was bothered with looking into Amy Hart’s death. Of course she had been intrigued by a possible connection with Sam’s overturned injunction, but as she sat and watched Liz Hart sob softly, she knew it was no longer her driving motivation. Finding out how and why Amy died might not bring her back, but it might try and help Liz and Ruby make some sense of it.

‘When Amy died,’ asked Anna gently, ‘what happened to all her stuff?’

‘Gary, my fella, has got his own window-cleaning round, so he drove us down to London in his van,’ said Liz. ‘We cleared her flat. I put everything in her old room. I couldn’t bear to throw anything away.’

Anna looked at Ruby.

‘Can we go and have a look?’

‘For what?’ asked Liz.

Anna shrugged. ‘Maybe we’ll know when we find it.’

She followed Ruby up the narrow staircase and into a tiny room only just big enough for a single bed, which was covered in a pile of overstuffed black bin liners and a stack of cardboard boxes. The boxes were filled with magazines, make-up and knick-knacks. Anna opened one of the bags and saw that it was full of clothes. Tiny skirts, sparkly tops and high-heeled shoes. Expensive, most of them, clothes that had seen many nights out. She felt a pang of sadness. All this life, all this potential, it was all gone, crumpled at the bottom of a flight of stairs.

‘You’re sorry you got into this, aren’t you?’ said Ruby, perching on the dresser in the corner. Anna gave her a rueful smile.

‘When you first came to see me, I thought it was none of my business. Or rather, I didn’t want it to be my business,’ she said honestly.

‘So why did you get involved? I mean, you didn’t take my money, so what was in it for you?’

‘I thought it might have something to do with Sam Charles. I thought maybe he’d been stitched up as a way of diverting attention from Amy’s inquest.’

Ruby looked stunned.

‘You think Sam Charles had something to do with Amy?’ she said incredulously.

Anna shook her head.

‘No, no, I don’t think he had anything to do with Amy’s death. But something you said on the phone made me think. When the news of Sam’s affair hit the papers, it was as if Amy never even existed. I wondered if Sam might have been set up, but I’ve spoken to Mandy, Ryan and Gilbert Bryce and . . .’

She trailed off. And what? What had they all told her, exactly? Nothing very much, if truth be told. Ryan thought he was being used, Mandy thought Amy was hiding something, and Gilbert, well Gilbert was clearly just thinking about himself. Taken individually, it all added up to nothing, but taken as a whole, it was setting off an alarm in the back of Anna’s head.

‘You believe me now,’ said Ruby quietly. ‘You believe that someone killed Amy.’

Anna was only half listening, her eyes scanning the wall next to Amy’s bed. There were lots of photos there, Blu-tacked reminders of good times, holidays and friends. You always smile in photographs, don’t you? she thought sadly. However you’re feeling, you always smile for the camera.

Suddenly she stood up and began opening the boxes on the bed.

‘What are you looking for?’ Ruby asked.

‘Pictures, photos, letters, anything like that,’ said Anna.

Ruby shook her head. ‘I wouldn’t bother,’ she said. ‘I packed those boxes and there’s nothing like that. I thought it was a bit strange, actually, ’cos Amy was a bit like our mum, she was a hoarder, could never throw anything away.’

Anna frowned at her.

‘You mean that in that whole flat, there were no photos at all?’

‘No, should there have been?’

Of course there should, thought Anna. Amy was a model, and she spent her life in a social whirl. The place should have been covered in pictures.

‘What about a computer? Did she have one?’

‘I thought she did,’ said Ruby. ‘She definitely used to have a laptop and she’d send me emails all the time, so she must have done. But when we cleared her flat, we couldn’t find it. Or her mobile.’

Anna frowned, while Ruby began rifling through her sister’s chest of drawers.

‘Before you ask, there were no mobile phone records or a diary, although who keeps one of those these days? But she did have this.’ She took a battered address book out of the drawer and gave it to Anna. ‘I had to use it to ring her friends about the funeral. Their numbers are all in there.’

Anna flicked through.

‘How many of them came to the funeral?’ she asked.

‘About a dozen.’ She rattled off the names, although none of them meant anything to Anna.

‘The only one who didn’t come was Louise, actually,’ said Ruby. ‘I was a bit sad about that because Lou was Amy’s best mate in London. They used to be flatmates before she moved into that posh flat by the Thames. I met her a few times; she was nice, she worked at a magazine.’

‘Why didn’t she come?’

Ruby shrugged. ‘Don’t know. She sent my mum a really nice letter saying how sorry she was, but when I tried to call her, her number had been disconnected. I rang the magazine and they said she’d left to go travelling.’

‘When did she leave?’

‘Not long after Amy died.’

The sky was turning dark as Anna’s car crept slowly along the inside lane of the motorway. At least she wouldn’t have to lie to Helen Pierce about traffic snarl-ups – it seemed as if the whole of the M1 was being dug up tonight – and it certainly gave her time to think. Not that it was getting her anywhere. The further she delved into Amy’s life, the harder it was to see clearly; it was like walking blindly into a dark wood. If only she had been able to go through Amy’s missing laptop and mobile phone, she was sure she would have found something of interest: photographs, emails, texts. But then, of course, perhaps that was the exact reason she hadn’t been able to check them. It was as if Amy’s flat had been cleared before Liz and Ruby Hart had done the official job.

She pulled out her phone, wondering if it was too late to ring. No, men like Phil Berry were always on call. That was sort of the point. She scrolled to his number.

‘Phil. It’s Anna Kennedy.’

‘Friday night,’ said the man, his Irish accent softening the words. ‘Ten thirty. Someone’s been a bad boy if you’re calling me now, Anna.’

She laughed. Phil Berry was a former consultant with Hill Securities – one of the private investigation giants that Davidson Owen had used for forensic accounting and chasing down witnesses. She’d worked with him on half a dozen cases before he’d left to set up on his own, undercutting his old firm. He was cheap, he was quick and he was completely reliable. If you wanted to find someone, he would find them. Anna thought of him as a human bloodhound.

‘I need you to track someone down for me.’

‘Don’t you ever call to invite me to dinner?’

Anna chuckled.

‘Not this time, Phil. I need the whereabouts of a girl named Louise Allerton. Twenty-four, works in fashion journalism. Class magazine. Left the country six months ago to go travelling, not been heard of since. I need to speak to her urgently.’

‘I’ll get on it straight away.’

She laughed. ‘I appreciate the dedication, but as you point out, it’s ten thirty on a Friday night. Don’t you have a life, Phil?’

‘This is my life, darling,’ he said, and hung up.

Mine too, thought Anna, as the traffic ahead of her began to move once more.