‘We believe your daughter’s death and the death of another young woman are linked,’ explained Erika.
‘What do you mean, “another young woman”? Who?’ asked Don, looking from one to the other and pushing his glasses up his nose with his free hand.
Erika briefly outlined the details of Janelle’s death, but omitted telling him her name and the location where her body had been found. ‘I’m telling you this in confidence. We haven’t released this information, and we won’t for the time being, but I wanted to explain our reasons for releasing Steven Pearson.’
Don sat forward, unhooking his arm from Charlotte.
‘So what you’re saying is that you’ve known about this bastard since August, yet you’ve done nothing?’
‘Mr Greene,’ started Moss, ‘the other young woman was a runaway; she didn’t have family and, sadly, no one reported her missing. Her body remained unidentified for quite some time…’
She omitted to say that the previous investigation had screwed things up and misreported key information.
‘We’re doing everything we can, Mr Greene. I know that sounds like a cliché, but we want to talk to you, to help us build a picture of events leading up to Lacey’s disappearance,’ added Erika.
‘We told Melanie all of this, and now you’re making us go through it all again!’ started Charlotte.
Don put up a hand to placate her.
‘Wednesday the fourth of January. Lacey left at seven p.m. to meet a bloke; a blind date, she told us. She’d been talking to him online for a couple of weeks. She told us his name was Nico,’ he explained.
‘She met this Nico online?’ asked Erika.
‘Yes, online dating, a website…’ started Don.
‘Don. It was a dating app. An app is not a website,’ snapped Charlotte.
‘App, website, what does it matter?’
‘What do you mean, “what does it matter”? They need to know the correct details! Match.com, it’s called, the app.’
‘Had she met anyone before this through this app or any other social network?’ asked Erika.
Charlotte shook her head. ‘No. Never.’
‘This Nico. Do you know how old he was? Where he lived? Do you have a surname or address?’ asked Moss.
‘No, and you should know this, we told Melanie all of this,’ said Charlotte. ‘I was against Lacey going, but this bloke seemed, well, she said she’d spoken to him on the phone. He had a Facebook profile.’
‘I was against her going too—’ started Don.
‘You were too busy watching telly to care!’
‘She’s… She was twenty-two!’ cried Don, tears in his eyes. He lifted his glasses again to wipe them away.
‘I didn’t want her to go,’ said Charlotte with pointed venom. ‘But she said it was only around the corner, the Blue Boar pub, and they’d be meeting in public… She was late back at first, which wasn’t unusual. But then it was two, three, four in the morning and she still hadn’t come home… I watched from that window. I always do it when she’s due home, and I’d see her. This time, I didn’t. We tried her mobile, but it was off… and…’ She crumpled against her husband again.
Don put his arm around her and took over, struggling with his emotions.
‘That’s when it dawned on us that we’d have to phone the police,’ he said. ‘She’d just graduated last summer, from Northumberland Uni. She got a first. She had loads of friends there, had a whale of a time. It was the shock of coming back here, to the real world, that she found hard. Hotel Mum and Dad we called it. She paid us a little bit for housekeeping, and she was in her old room, but she was restless, waiting to start her life. This shouldn’t have happened. You think this kind of thing only happens to other people.’
Erika and Moss nodded, giving them a moment to compose themselves.
‘Was Lacey working?’ asked Moss.
‘Temping through an agency in offices. Different one each week. You know, admin and the like,’ said Don.
‘There was no one new in her life, no new friends she talked about?’ asked Erika.
‘She didn’t have any friends here,’ said Charlotte. ‘She was bullied badly in high school, and was glad to see the back of Southgate. University was the making of her, she blossomed. She kept in contact with all of her university friends online. They were due to meet up next month.’ She looked up at Erika with swollen eyes. ‘They’re all coming down for the funeral; they’ve been calling, asking when it is… They want us to make her Facebook a Memorialised Account… I can’t bear it.’ She broke down again and hid her face against Don’s chest.
‘Was there an ex-boyfriend from school, before she went to university?’ asked Erika.
‘No. I told you she wasn’t happy here. There was a lad at uni, he was nice, came to stay once, but it fizzled out. She concentrated on her studies. She got a first; she had everything in front of her… everything,’ said Charlotte. She bit her lip. ‘Do you think she suffered?’
‘Did you view Lacey’s body?’ asked Erika.
They nodded.
‘Then you saw what happened. I have a brilliant team of officers. I give you my word that I will find out who did this. They won’t get away with it.’
Charlotte continued to sob, and Don pulled her closer, tears magnified behind his glasses. They looked to the Family Liaison Officer who had remained quiet; she gave Moss and Erika a subtle nod.
‘Would you mind if we took a look at Lacey’s bedroom?’ asked Moss.
‘Please, don’t mess anything up. Lacey had tidied up before she left, so keep it as she left it,’ said Charlotte.
‘Of course,’ said Erika, and she and Moss left the room just as flames sprang to life in the fireplace.
Chapter Twenty-One
Lacey’s bedroom was at the back of the house, overlooking a smart garden with wooden decking. A wooden table and chairs were stacked against the wall of the house, and the silver feet of a large gas barbecue poked out from underneath a beige plastic cover. Towards the back of the garden, there was a swimming pool with a curved retractable roof, and beyond, a tall stone wall separated it from a strip of woodland. Through the trees a train clacking past broke the silence.
‘They’re posh aren’t they?’ said Moss. ‘Look at that wardrobe. That didn’t come in here in bits. Nor did the bed, or the desk there under the window.’
The bedroom was frozen in time, from when Lacey was fifteen or sixteen. There was a row of cuddly toys on the bed, and on the wall were posters of Lily Allen and Duffy. The desk was covered in make-up, some bottles of perfume, and a big mirror was propped up against the wall.
‘I really want to know what’s on her laptop,’ said Erika, indicating a square in the dust on the desk. ‘We need to keep chasing the Cyber Team.’