In front of Marianne, thought Rowan. ‘When you were doing your homework,’ she said carefully, ‘did you come across the name Greta Mulraine?’
His silence answered for him. She could almost hear him following the ramifications through. ‘You think,’ he said slowly, ‘that Mazz jumped – committed suicide – because of Michael Cory?’
‘No, I’m not saying I . . . I mean, who knows what happened with Greta. Clearly Cory’s interested in people who aren’t simple, isn’t he? Or stable. Maybe he knew Greta had suicidal tendencies and that was why he was drawn to her in the first . . .’
‘She killed herself in his studio,’ Turk cut her off. ‘Did you know that? She bled to death on the floor. Kind of eloquent, don’t you think?’
Rowan took the few steps to the nearest sofa, sat down and bent her head towards her knees.
‘Are you okay?’ said a small voice from the phone.
When she was more or less confident she wasn’t going to throw up, she asked him, ‘Pete, did Mazz ever mention being watched?’
‘What? What the hell, Rowan?’
‘Look, it might be nothing, it might just be that I’m here on my own and she’s dead and I’m freaking out, I don’t know.’
‘What’s going on?’
‘I don’t know. There’s this guy who stands at his window all the time in the building behind here – you know that little block of flats? Even at three in the morning.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘I’m not sleeping brilliantly,’ she admitted. ‘And I keep thinking there’s someone in the garden but if I open the door or look out of the window, there’s no one there.’
‘Then . . .’
‘Jacqueline told me Mazz thought her work was going missing. She thought someone was getting in here, taking sketches. She even went to the police.’
‘They investigated that, though.’ He sounded a little calmer. ‘They didn’t find anything – no evidence of a breakin. They thought she’d probably just got confused, mislaid the things she was looking for.’
‘Confused? Marianne?’
‘Well, either way, it can’t have anything to do with what happened, can it? She was on her own then.’
‘What about the guy in the flat opposite?’
‘She never mentioned him to me.’
‘You think she would have?’
‘Until about three minutes ago,’ he said, ‘I would have said yes.’
‘This is going to sound a bit mad but do you think it might be Michael Cory?’
‘Cory? In one of those poky flats?’ Turk gave a bark – Ha. ‘What do you think he’d be doing?’
‘What if that’s part of his process – you know, watching people secretly?’ Peeping: call a spade a spade, Rowan.
‘You think he was hoping to catch sight of her in her underwear? If he was painting her, she was probably stripping off for him anyway.’ Again the barely concealed hurt.
‘They’re selling the house, Pete,’ she said. ‘Adam told me.’
The out-breath was gentle, barely a sigh, but she heard it. ‘I knew they would,’ he said. ‘They couldn’t live there again, could they? Not now.’
Seventeen
On the radio last night, the forecast had talked animatedly of snow but she’d opened the curtains this morning to sheer blue and a rush of light that made her eyes water. Cory had called a few minutes later – while she was putting her clothes on – to announce that he’d come to the house at ten. Irritated, she’d told him that she was working and she’d meet him at half-one in the Covered Market.
There were a couple of things she wanted to do before then, the first being to come here to Benson Place and take a look around.
She could see at once that her mental image of it was out of date. She’d been picturing the flats as tired sixties constructions on a shabby cul-de-sac hidden away behind Fyfield and Norham Roads like a poor relation, but the tide of money that had swept through North Oxford had reached this little inlet, too, and the strip of grass that separated the flats from the pavement was manicured, as were the privet bushes and the japonica trained around the freshly painted windows. The first cars she saw were an Audi and a BMW.
She’d borrowed a baseball cap and as she walked the length of the little road, she kept it pulled down over her forehead. No silver Mercedes but that didn’t mean anything. If Cory were living here in secret, he’d likely have the wit not to park outside. He could also be out.