‘There’s a Catherine Charnock in SW15. That’s not her address, though, is it? Constantine Avenue?’
‘That’s Harold Lowe’s house. She must have been using it as her alternative address.’ I thought back to the pile of post in his hall, which I’d stepped over without a second glance. Stupid … but even if I’d seen the name I wouldn’t have made the connection with Kate Emery. It had been a safe place for her to use as her address, better than any PO box. Untraceable.
More and more I thought that police dog had earned his Bonios.
‘It’s a Nationwide account.’ He rang their call centre and explained what he wanted. They found her accounts within seconds. ‘And that’s active, is it? Whereabouts is she using her card? Where’s that? Hampshire? Never heard of it.’
He was tapping a name into his computer as he spoke – Groves Edge. I leaned over his shoulder to see the results. It was a hamlet that consisted of a few shops and a handful of houses strung out along a minor road. He flicked between the satellite image and the map, zooming out so I could see how remote it was. Narrow country lanes. Not many houses. The middle of nowhere. The largest settlement nearby was Lymington, and I’d never heard of that either, though it seemed to be a pretty seaside town.
‘And she’s used it to pay a sum of money to a lettings agent. All right. Thanks.’
‘It’s tiny,’ I said. ‘She’d stand out as a stranger.’
Colin was shaking his head. ‘They always go rural. Never stay in the cities. It’s so stupid. I know they want to get well away from other people, but if they found somewhere big enough and used cash all the time, they could lie low. We’d have no chance of catching them.’
‘Lucky for us.’
‘Indeed. Now to talk to the lettings agent.’
‘I wonder if she’s still there?’ I said. ‘Surely she’d run again once she knew Chloe was dead?’
‘Speaking for myself, if anything happened to my kids, I’d be inconsolable. I wouldn’t be thinking about getting away. I’d want to kill whoever hurt them. That would be my number one ambition.’ He sounded matter-of-fact. I didn’t doubt he would do exactly that.
‘I never knew you had it in you, Colin.’
‘You put everything you have into your kids. You’d do anything for them. Sacrifice anything.’ He shrugged. ‘I wouldn’t hold back.’
‘What have you got?’ Derwent leaned on the desk beside me, making me jump.
‘She’s somewhere near a village called Groves Edge. It’s in Hampshire,’ I said. ‘Straight down the A3.’
Derwent raised an eyebrow at me. ‘Fancy a road trip?’
I was washing my hands when the door to the ladies’ room opened. I looked up at the mirror and saw Georgia Shaw standing behind me, her face set.
‘Are you OK?’
‘You made fun of me.’
‘What?’ I twisted round to look at her properly. ‘When?’
‘When I suggested it might not be murder. The first night, when we were at Valerian Road. You laughed at me, and I was right.’
‘DI Derwent laughed at you,’ I said, and it was true, but guilt sent a chill over my skin. She had suggested it wasn’t murder. I’d ignored her.
‘You didn’t exactly stand up for me. You sent me away.’
‘That’s right, I did.’ I picked up a paper towel and started drying my hands. ‘There was no reason at that stage to think you were right. We had no idea it was staged. And you didn’t either.’
‘No, but—’
If you’d stayed, Derwent would have ripped you apart and he’d have enjoyed it.’
‘Why?’
‘For fun.’ I sighed. ‘Look, I did you a favour by getting you out of his way.’
‘You didn’t want me to be around him.’ Her eyes narrowed. ‘Do you feel threatened by me?’
‘Absolutely not.’ I threw the paper towel in the bin and leaned back against the sink. ‘But if you think I’m going to mentor you, you’re mistaken. If you do your job properly – and it’s a big if, considering how I’ve seen you behave – I’ll back you up, every time. I’ve been looking out for you, believe it or not. I didn’t say anything to Una Burt about how you froze on the street.’
‘But you told her you didn’t want to work with me.’ Her bottom lip was quivering. ‘You’ve always had special treatment on this team and you don’t like sharing the limelight.’
‘That sounds like something Pete Belcott would say.’ I saw her eyes flicker: got it in one. ‘Choose your allies carefully, Georgia. He’s a shit.’
‘And Derwent isn’t?’
‘He has his moments.’
‘You act like you own him.’
‘I most certainly do not.’
‘Everyone knows you slept together.’
‘No, that never happened. It was a rumour, that’s all,’ I said patiently. A rumour that Derwent hadn’t done anything like enough to dispel. I had been angry that Georgia was challenging me, but I couldn’t hold on to that feeling. I looked at her, flushed and struggling for composure, and I remembered what it was like to be the new girl on the team. To feel insecure all the time. To worry about opening your mouth in case you said the wrong thing. To wonder about people’s loyalties, people’s histories. To say the wrong thing without meaning to.
Don’t try to be me. I’d thought I was doing enough by not being as hard on Georgia as Derwent had been on me, but that wasn’t right either.
‘I think we should start again. A clean slate.’ I cleared my throat. ‘You did a good job on the paperwork. Better than good. I wouldn’t have found the Rosebery Clinic letter for hours, and I might have missed its significance.’
‘Thanks.’ She sounded wary.
‘DI Derwent and I are going to look for Kate Emery in Hampshire.’ I would regret this, I thought. ‘Do you want to come?’
‘Yes. Yes, I do.’
‘OK. Good.’ I hoped Derwent wouldn’t mind. ‘But watch yourself around Derwent. He’s tricky.’
A glimmer of a smile lightened her expression. ‘I’ve noticed.’
Fairness compelled me to add, ‘He’s a good person. I mean, if you expand your definition of good to include quite a lot of bad behaviour.’
‘You trust him.’
‘Never,’ I said, and meant it.
‘But you like working with him.’
‘I wouldn’t say that.’
She shook her head. ‘I can’t work it out.’
‘I’m used to him. I know what to expect.’ I checked my watch. ‘For instance, I know that he is already in the car and if we don’t get a move on, he’ll leave without us. Let’s go.’
32
We were twenty minutes into our journey when the heavy black clouds above us began to seep rain. Derwent flicked on the windscreen wipers as a flash of lightning made me jump.
‘This is all we need,’ he growled.
‘It was forecast,’ Georgia said from the back seat. ‘Thunderstorms across the south-east. And a possibility of flooding.’
‘No shit.’ Derwent switched the wipers to their fastest setting as the rain poured down the windscreen in a near-opaque sheet. Water rattled on the roof of the car, so loud that I could barely hear the thunder, or Derwent swearing beside me. He slowed down a little, and then a little more, until he was only going approximately twice as fast as I would have liked.