“Where do you live?” Gemma asked.
“Peckham Rye. The heart of suburbia, I know. But my husband works for Lambeth Council and it gives him an easy commute.” Kerry glanced at her watch. “Let’s see if they’re here.”
Gemma followed Kerry through the door and breathed in the smell of coffee and bacon.
It was a comfortable space, done in wood and brick and leatherette banquettes, with a spiraling iron staircase to an upper level. There were colorful enamel teapots, empty biscuit and oatmeal tins holding cutlery, and overall a cheerful hum. Gemma thought it would be a pleasant place to meet friends for a meal or a cup of tea, or to come for a bit of a think. She could understand why Kerry liked it.
She recognized Hugo Gold immediately, sitting on a banquette near the back. He looked older and thinner than he had in the photos on Reagan’s corkboard, and Gemma wondered if the hollows under his eyes were chronic, or due to a sleepless night. Still, with his blond hair in its slightly feminine cut and his regular features, he was striking. A young man and a young woman sat at the table with him.
“That him?” Kerry murmured as she waved off the seating host. When Gemma nodded, she said, “Recognized him from your description. Looks like he brought reinforcements.”
They crossed the room, weaving past tables. Hugo Gold looked up at them blankly, then, when he realized they were heading for him—Kerry’s navy suit screamed cop—Gemma saw him stiffen. The young man, who had been speaking to him earnestly, stopped and turned to look.
“You must be Hugo,” said Kerry, reaching the table first. “I’m DCI Boatman.” She held out her hand and he half-rose to shake it. “And this is DI James. Do you mind if we sit?”
There was room on the banquette beside Hugo. When he nodded to his friends, they vacated their seats, the young man moving round beside him and the woman pulling an unused chair from another table. Gemma found it interesting that it was the young man who sat beside Hugo. He was rather plain, and made more so by the contrast with Hugo. His mousy hair was a little long, like Hugo’s, but unstyled and, although Gemma put him in his early twenties, his face still showed a scattering of spots.
“I’m Sidney. Sidney Wyatt,” he said, with a hint of belligerence. He wore a stained brown T-shirt that bore the faded logo of a band Gemma didn’t recognize. Hugo, on the other hand, had thrown a royal blue blazer over a white T-shirt and looked as though he’d stepped out of a fashion advert.
In a soft voice, the young woman introduced herself as Thea Osho. Her skin was a deep, burnished black. She had full lips and high cheekbones. Her dark eyes, which slanted upwards at the corners, were accentuated by expertly applied eyeliner. Her head was shaved on one side and the rest of her hair fell in long, tiny braids that had brightly colored metal discs attached to the ends. It was a look that no one ordinary could have pulled off. She greeted them with a smile that seemed genuine and a glisten of tears in her eyes. “We want to know what happened to Reagan,” she said. “We’re her friends, too.”
So, not there as emotional support for Hugo, Gemma thought, or at least not on Thea’s part.
When the waitress came to the table, Kerry ordered a latte, but Gemma shook her head and took out a little notebook. She wanted to listen without the distraction of a drink.
“You didn’t know that Reagan was dead?” she asked, directing her question to Thea.
Thea shook her head, the little discs on the ends of her braids jingling. They were bottle caps, Gemma decided, that had been pounded flat. “I’d been texting her, then ringing her since Friday,” Thea said. “At first I thought she was just busy with Jess’s dance classes and her modeling.”
“But you didn’t hear from her,” Gemma said, when she paused.
“No. Then her voice mail filled up. I was a little worried about her, but I never thought . . .”
“You didn’t go to her house?” Kerry asked, having accepted a beautifully designed latte from the waitress, who called her “love” with a familiarity hinting at visits more regular than Kerry had admitted.
“Oh, no. I wouldn’t have done that.” Thea sounded surprised. “Reagan didn’t really like her friends coming there. And to be honest, I never felt welcome.” She shrugged a dark shoulder, exposed by the thin strap of her tank top. “I don’t think her boss approved of me,” she added with a little grimace and a finger touched to her cheek, making it clear she meant the color of her skin. Her movements were so fluid that Gemma thought of Jess, and wondered if Thea danced, too. And if she’d at first wondered if there was anything between this girl and Hugo Gold, she decided that there was not. He was gazing past her, his face blank, and there was no spark of intimacy between them.
“Hugo.” Kerry, fortified by a sip of coffee, sounded ready to get down to business. “When did you see Reagan last?”
He seemed to bring himself back to them with an effort. “It was Friday.” His accent was quite posh but his voice, thought Gemma, was just a bit too high to be pleasant. “We all went to the piano bar on Friday night,” he added, looking at Sidney and Thea as if for confirmation. They both nodded.
“The piano bar?”
“Kensington Piano. It’s across the road,” said Hugo, gesturing towards Kensington High Street. “Upstairs.”
Although she’d never been in, Gemma had often walked past its tiny frontage with the black downstairs door.
“I understood you were a couple,” Kerry said. “You didn’t try to reach her over the weekend?”
Hugo shifted in his seat. “No. We had a bit of a row at the club and I thought she was still cheesed off with me. I thought she’d text me when she’d had a chance to cool off. You know, to apologize.”
Kerry looked surprised. “Reagan needed to apologize to you? Why was that?”
He shrugged. “She was just having a bad night. Pissed off with everybody. I told her to chill, it was Friday night and we were out to have a good time, and for that she bit my head off.”
“Was she drinking?”
He shrugged. “She had one, maybe two drinks. But Reagan isn’t—wasn’t—a big drinker.”
“Then what happened? Did you see her home, Hugo?”
“No. She just left. It was only about half past ten. She said she had a headache.”
“Did Reagan have her mobile with her?” Gemma put in, still bothered by the missing phone.
“Well, yeah, I’m sure she did,” said Hugo, but he sounded uncertain. “I mean, why wouldn’t she?” From his tone, Gemma might have asked if Reagan had gone out without an arm.
Thea spoke up. “She did. I saw her texting.”
“Any idea who she was texting?” Gemma asked.
Thea shook her head. “No. Maybe it was work. Or her mum.”