‘If she was using a dating app, it would be on her phone,’ said Moss.
Erika went to the mirrored wardrobe and slid it open. There was a huge number of clothes packed in on the rails, and it was a mixture of casual and skimpy clothes, all high quality, and some designer labels. Moss went to one of the bookshelves, took down a heavy brown photo album and started to flick through. Erika looked out of the window again. Charlotte had emerged in a long black Puffa jacket and was throwing bits of old bread onto the snow. A flock of birds came swooping down to feed.
‘Boss, look at this…’
Erika went to Moss who was perched on the bed. The photo album was open on a page of polaroids. In all of them Lacey was pictured with the same pouty young girl with long mousy hair. One was taken on a summer’s day in the garden by the pool, where they wore bikinis; in another they posed in front of the statue of Eros in Piccadilly Circus. The third was taken underwater – they were grinning with their eyes wide open, hair spread out like halos, and bubbles escaping from their noses.
‘Do they look like they’re more than friends?’ asked Moss. She turned the page with a creak of cardboard, and there were more polaroids of the girls, singing into a mirror with hairbrushes, and lying together on a bed; the mousey-haired girl was nuzzling Lacey’s shoulder.
‘The polaroids are thicker here, don’t you think?’ asked Erika, running her fingers over the cellophane-covered square edges.
Moss carefully peeled back the clear cellophane, and lifted out the polaroid which felt thicker. Underneath it was a polaroid of both girls naked. They were pictured side on, pressed against one another with their heads turned to the camera, and under it was another where they faced the camera completely naked, arms slung over shoulders.
‘This was taken in front of the wardrobe in this room,’ said Moss. ‘Why didn’t Charlotte and Don mention this when you asked about relationships? It looks like this was more than just a friendship.’
Erika looked back at the photo of the two girls pressed against each other.
‘We need to know who this girl is, and if Lacey was still in contact with her. She might know something.’
Chapter Twenty-Two
‘I can see why they call this Brutalist architecture,’ said John, looking up at Peterson from under his wooly hat. They had emerged from the tube station onto the Barbican Housing Estate, which was devoid of colour, the grey sky matching the concrete tower blocks. Blake’s Tower rose up directly in front of them: a seventeen-storey block that housed the YMCA youth hostel, a gym and a small cafeteria.
They went through the doors of the Youth Hostel, relishing the warmth. Inside it was quiet and starkly lit, with a long polished Formica front desk and bare concrete walls. A woman in her twenties sat at the desk. She had long scrappy red hair and thick black glasses which reflected the glow of her computer. There was a smell of old gym shoes mixed in with cleaning fluid and floor wax, and behind her were rows and rows of small lockers, many ajar with keys hanging from the locks.
‘Hi, are you Sada Pence?’ asked Peterson.
‘It’s pronounced Shaday,’ said the girl, disinterested, her eyes not leaving the computer screen.
Peterson and John pulled out their warrant cards and introduced themselves, explaining that they wanted to talk to her about the murder of Janelle Robinson.
‘I spoke to the police already,’ she said, continuing to type. She had a slight northern accent.
‘We’d like to talk to you again,’ said Peterson.
‘So talk,’ she said, the spindly office chair squeaking as she sat back and crossed her arms.
‘How long did Janelle Robinson live here?’
Sada shrugged. ‘Nine, maybe ten months.’
‘So she moved in here… late in 2015?’
‘Sounds about right: November time. She started off paying, then she ran out of money close to Christmas, and asked if she could work in exchange for accommodation.’
‘Is that normal?’ asked John.
‘Depends what your notion of normal is? You look like guys who can afford to live in London.’
‘I live near Bromley,’ said John.
‘Just answer the question, please,’ said Peterson.
‘It wasn’t up to me. The guy who manages the place makes the decision. He liked her and took pity…’ She leaned forward, her eyes wide and magnified behind her glasses. ‘There was a rumour that she blew him, but I dunno.’
‘Was Janelle working here up until she vanished?’
‘No, she just did the Christmas and then went back to paying her way.’
‘How did she do that?’ asked John.
‘When the weather got better she ran a coffee bike.’
‘A coffee bike?’
‘You know, one of those little coffee machines in the back of a bike. She biked around and sold coffees. She did well.’
‘Do you know where she sold coffee?’
‘All over. Covent Garden, London Bridge, Embankment. She didn’t have a permit though, so she was moving around a lot.’
‘Where did she get the bike from?’ asked John.
The girl smiled. She had a grey front tooth. ‘I didn’t ask. Ask no questions and you get no lies. It was a nice one, chrome and classy. It was her dream to run her own coffee place.’
‘You think she stole it?’
The girl grinned again and shrugged. ‘The manager let her keep it here in the bike store when things were quiet.’
‘Did you ever meet any of her friends or family?’
She shook her head. ‘Family, no. Janelle’s mum died when she was little. She didn’t know her dad. She was brought up in a children’s home, but ran away just before her sixteenth birthday.’
‘Why did she run away?’
‘A couple of the men who worked there had wandering hands,’ she said, pursing her mouth at John’s question.
‘Did she mention any of the men she dated?’ asked Peterson.
‘Sometimes, in passing. But there were lots of men. She liked men, and sex. She was always dating someone new.’
Peterson received a text message, and pulled his phone out, seeing it was from Erika.
‘Did she ever mention a man with the name Nico?’
Sada shook her head.
‘When was the last time you saw her?’
‘We had a row. It was the twenty-third, or the twenty-fourth of August. We had a big group of cyclists from Holland staying, and I’d told her she couldn’t keep the coffee bike here because the bike store would be full. She left that morning, telling me to fuck off and she took the bike with her. It was the last time I saw her.’ A tear formed in the corner of her eye, and she wiped it away. ‘I can still see her, pushing it across the forecourt outside. It was a nice sunny day too.’
‘So this was the twenty-fourth of August. Can you remember what time?’
‘I dunno; nine in the morning.’
‘She didn’t say she was going?’ asked John.
‘I told you, we had a row.’
‘What did you do when she didn’t come back? What about her belongings?’