Something. A body was what I meant, and what he understood.
He lifted up the garage door, sliding it back. I had taken out my torch already and now I shone it around the bleak interior. It was a concrete box three metres wide and four metres deep, and it was almost empty. It was cold and smelled of dust but not noticeably of decay. In the corner, at the back, the chest freezer squatted, humming quietly. It was not a new one. I shone my torch along the cord to where it was plugged in. The socket was cracked and there was no switch to turn it off; I wouldn’t have dared to try to pull the plug out myself.
I moved towards the freezer, my eyes on the floor in case I walked through something that could turn out to be important evidence.
‘At least it’s still on.’ Derwent nodded towards the freezer. ‘It’s when they’re switched off that things get messy.’
‘So you’re going to open it after all.’
‘Not me.’ He literally stepped back, holding his hands up, as if I was going to force him. ‘I’ve got a phobia.’
‘That must be nice.’ I bent down to look at the edge of the freezer before I touched it. There was an indentation in the middle, the natural place where you would put your hand if you were opening the lid. If Kate Emery’s fingerprints were on there – or someone else’s – I didn’t want to smudge them beyond recovery. I handed Derwent the torch and used both hands to prise it open, staying well away from the middle. I steeled myself, pushed the lid back and held it up. He shone the torch over my shoulder, sweeping it around the interior of the freezer. Frost bulged from every surface, indented on the bottom where something rectangular had been resting.
‘Nothing.’
‘Not absolutely nothing.’ I pointed to the frost on the bottom of the freezer. There was a mark, a smudge that was less than a centimetre long. ‘Shine the torch there. What’s that?’
He leaned in. ‘It looks like blood.’
‘Doesn’t it, though.’
‘Maybe that’s just our suspicious minds.’
‘Maybe. It could have been there for years. This freezer hasn’t been defrosted since the last Ice Age by the looks of it.’
He straightened up. ‘I’m calling Kev Cox anyway. If that’s blood, I’d like to know who or what it belongs to. We can worry about how it got there later.’
18
I got back to my flat at seven, tired, hot and annoyed. It had been a long day and ultimately a frustrating one. There weren’t any forensic officers free to come and retrieve the evidence from the yard; it wasn’t a priority when there had been a shooting in Brixton and two bodies found in a flat in Acton. After a couple of hours of waiting, Kev had called me to put it off until the following day. I’d gone back to the office and endless paper shuffling, scanning through mobile phone records until my eyes ached. Net progress: nil.
I plugged my phone in so it could charge and stripped off my clothes, stepping into the shower while it still ran cold enough to make me shiver. It was worth it to feel the grime of Martin Yawl’s storage unit sluicing away. A cold drink, laundry, trashy TV; my plans for the evening were not ambitious. It was a good thing, I told myself as I pulled on a T-shirt and shorts, that I didn’t have to factor anyone else into my plans. There would be no argument about going out, or what to watch on television or who had drunk the last Diet Coke.
It was no good. I couldn’t fool myself even if I was able to fool anyone else. I was lonely.
Still, actually going on a date was unthinkable. I wasn’t ready for that.
I wasn’t ready to let go of the thought that maybe – just maybe – Rob might reconsider his very abrupt departure from my life. It was strange how I could be totally rational and even cynical most of the time, but when it came to Rob I still believed in happy ever after. That was love, though – that blind faith that everything would come right in the end. I had been slow to love him, slow to trust him, and even when it was absolutely clear that he had betrayed that trust, I was reluctant to accept it.
And there was something to be said, all things considered, for being alone. If he didn’t come back, it made it so much easier. I could put off making those decisions about when to have children, if I even wanted to have them. I could work all the hours there were in the day without worrying about anyone minding. I could be free.
I was halfway through my drink, staring into the fridge as if looking at shrivelled mushrooms and a waxy piece of cheddar might cause inspiration to strike (it was going to be toast for dinner again, and I knew it) when I heard the low purr of my mobile from the hall. Una Burt’s name flashed on the screen.
‘Boss.’
‘Maeve, I’ve had a call from Oliver Norris. He says the girls have gone missing.’
‘The girls?’
‘Chloe and Bethany.’
‘When you say missing—’
‘They were at home this morning but sometime after lunch, Mrs Norris realised they’d gone out. It’s out of character for Bethany to leave without telling her mother she’s going.’
‘So they’ve been gone for a few hours.’
‘At least five or six.’
‘Have the locals been informed?’
‘They’re all looking out for them.’
They would be. As a fifteen-year-old, Bethany Norris counted as a child. She would be categorised as a high-risk misper – police slang for missing person – even without the connection to a murder investigation, or the fact that she was on her own with an adult who had special needs. If it came to that, Chloe would be a high-risk misper too. They made a distinctive couple, I thought. It should be easy enough to find them if they were wandering the streets of London.
‘So what can I do?’
‘Go and talk to the Norrises. Reassure them. See if they’ll talk to you. I know Bethany is only fifteen but she’s a smart girl. Oliver Norris sounded much too worried to me. I want to know why he’s in such a panic.’
‘Do you think they might have gone because they feel guilty about something?’
‘It had occurred to me to wonder.’ Burt paused, uneasy. ‘They weren’t on our list of suspects, were they?’
‘They weren’t off mine, but there was no evidence to link them to Kate’s death. Chloe wasn’t even in London, was she?’
‘Unless that was deliberate.’
‘It was very convenient.’
‘I’d like to know where the girls are, Maeve. I’d like to know they’re safe and then I’d like to hear why they’ve run away without leaving as much as a note behind.’
‘OK. Just me?’
There was a tiny pause. ‘I didn’t think you’d mind.’
Because everyone else was busy having a life.